HG 



Copy 




.m 



WMfn'Ui 



m 



{LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. #| 



{ . <%/ia/ t .. UGtAlU J 



~£S£^ -X97 



* 

J UNITED STATES OE AMERICA. Ji 






LOTTERY SYSTEM 



IN THE 



UNITED STATES 



On commence par etre dupe, 
On finit par etre fripon. 

Mad. Deshoulieres. 



BY JOB R. TYSON. 



THIRD EDITION. 

PHILADELPHIA : 
E, L. CAREY & A. HART,— CHESNUT STREET. 

1837. 



J 



PREFACE. 



An outline of the following treatise, was 
written in the beginning of the year 1833, and 
published by the resolution of a meeting of citi- 
zens of Philadelphia, who were favourable to 
the extinction of the lottery system. Its cir- 
culation is believed to have contributed, in 
some degree, to the discontinuance of so un- 
worthy a policy in the state of Pennsylvania, 
and prepared the public mind elsewhere, for 
the legislative repeals and constitutional inter- 
dicts which followed. 

The former editions of this little work being 
exhausted, and the demand for copies increas- 
ing, a new impression seemed to be required. 
In preparing for it, the author has nearly re- 
written the whole performance, and added 
many new facts of an interesting nature. He 
has spared no pains to render it, in all re- 



VI PREFACE. 

spects, as acceptable as his leisure and means 
of information would permit. 

A confident hope is indulged that cogent 
motives may be discerned in the social and mo- 
ral evils of the system, to. induce such a pro- 
vision, in the new Charter of Pennsylvania, as 
w r ill disable the legislature from making a lot- 
tery grant. 

Besides presenting reasons for the universal 
abandonment of a policy so erroneous and de- 
structive, the writer has in view the formation 
of societies, to aid the execution of the laws 
in those states in which the system is abolish- 
ed. While it prevails in any state of the 
Union, there is ground for apprehension that 
the protective legislation of the others, will 
claim respect only in proportion to that vigi- 
lance which shall assist in guarding it from 
infringement. 

In Philadelphia and other parts of the state, 
there is abundant reason to believe that the 
law, if not openly defied, is secretly violated. 
Nor is it matter of surprise that the lower 
classes of the people should feel a desire to 
indulge in the golden dreams inspired by the 



PREFACE. Vll 

promises of the lottery, while such announce- 
ments as the following, find their way into the 
newspapers of the day : — " A V rench pa- 
per of February 7th., states that the coach- 
man of Mr. Vandenaclen, of Brussels, has 
drawn a prize of five millions of florins, (about 
$2,000,000,) in a German lottery."* 

The publication of such intelligence, can- 
not but be injurious to the whole tribe of coach- 
men and servants, in this country, whose am- 
bition, it is well known, is already sufficiently 
magnificent. "If God," says the Arabic Pro- 
verb, "purposes the destruction of an ant, he 
allows wings to grow upon her." According 
to Burckhardt, the traveller, the adage im- 
plies that the sudden elevation of a person 
beyond his natural condition, usually causes 
his ruin. Adopting the announcement to be 
true, w r e cannot doubt that the glittering prize 
will prove fatal to the character and peace of 
its unfortunate holder. 

* Quoted from a recent Philadelphia Journal. 



FROM PREFACE 

OF 

SECOND EDITION 



The facts here displayed have been obtain- 
ed from an extensive examination of the sub- 
ject, and a correspondence with well-informed 
individuals in different parts of the United 
States. Several cases have been received 
from unexceptionable private hands ; some 
rest upon the authority of high public func- 
tionaries ; and some upon the verity of the 
public records. Of those derived from other 
publications, few have been adopted without 
as minute personal inquiry as circumstances 
rendered it possible to institute. 



THE LOTTERY SYSTEM &c. 



CHAPTER I. 

Gambling, by means of the lottery, is not of very 
modern origin. Though it has been tolerated, and 
even fostered by Christian communities, it dates its 
birth so far back as a remote period in the history of 
the Romans. The uses to which it was applied, are 
faithfully delineated by Menestrier, a Jesuit father, 
who published the result of his researches about the 
close of the seventeenth century. 

The Christian world is indebted to the republic of 
Genoa for suggesting the idea of resorting to the lot- 
tery, as a measure of finance. From Italy it mi- 
grated into France, about the year 1580, where its 
history presents one dark page of poverty, wretched- 
ness and crime. Its introduction into Great Britain 
was early, being nurtured and sustained by the friend- 
ly hand of government, as an expedient for raising 
money upon the principle of voluntary taxation. The 
first lottery mentioned in English history, was estab- 

A 



8 

lished in 1567 ; and Maitland of Stowe informs us, 
that in 1569, there were but three lottery offices in 
the kingdom.* A few years brought an immense ac- 
cession to the number, and various statutes were 
made, to diminish, by restrictions and penalties, the 
malignity of their influence. But no emollient was 
equal to the emergencyof its purposes. A new ge- 
nius awoke into being, competent to evade, by dex- 
terity and stratagem, the provisions of each new law. 
At length its enormity became too obvious and crying 
for popular favour. An inqu v was made in the 
house of commons, and on the recommendation of a 
committee, new guards were applied. Still checks 
were found to be but a temporary alleviation. Like 
most mitigating remedies, they produced the effect 
of giving false security to the patient, rather than ef- 
ficacy in counteracting the disease. Nothing less 
than a kind of a legislative amputation could expel a 
poison so deeply seated and pervading. 

It may well be supposed, that if it prevailed in 
England when this country was colonized, the policy 
would be observable in acts relating to its early set- 
tlement. Accordingly, the second lottery granted by 
Parliment was authorized in the reign of the first 
James, for carrying on the colonization of Virginia. 
The eastern colonies experienced the unhappy results 
of the same spirit of legislation. So early as 1699, 

* The first lottery in England was drawn at the west door of St, 
Paul's Cathedral ! 



the " ministers met at Boston" denounced the lottery 
as a cheat, and its agents as pillagers of the peo- 
ple. But notwithstanding this early denunciation of 
the system, and its recent extinction in England, the 
lottery has taken deep root and shot its noxious 
branches into many portions of the American Union. 
Legislative sanction is here given to this vice under 
the various pretences of excavating canals, building 
bridges, erecting schoolhouses, and endowing col- 
leges, as well as for the construction of edifices de- 
voted to worshipping the Deity ! Unhappy indeed, 
that the lover of freedom should consent to aim a de- 
liberate blow at his proud institutions ; and that the 
Christian votary should inflict a deep wound upon 
religion and morality, with the ostensible view of 
aiding in their promotion ! 

But whatever may have been the origin of lottery 
grants in the United States, the objects to which they 
have been applied, are not more multifarious, than the 
number and amount of schemes have been overwhelm- 
ing. In the different states, there are no less than 
twelve or fourteen lotteries which claim the sanction 
of a legal existence. What sum may be hazarded in 
a single day, it is difficult to calculate with any thing 
like precision. That it is alarming in magnitude, 
may be presumed from the fact, that in the sin- 
gle state of New York, schemes have been issued, 
since the adoption of her new constitution, to the enor- 
mous sum of thirty ~seven millions of dollars! In 



10 

Pennsylvania, schemes issued under the authority of 
seven other states, were, for a long time, vended to 
an incredible amount, in direct violation of law. It 
could not have been anticipated by the provincial As* 
sembly of 1762, when it prohibited lotteries with a 
striking preamble and a high penalty, that a few 
years would witness their multiplication to such an 
extent. 

This colonial legislation, whilst it displays the do- 
mestic feelings of the colonists, at an early period, 
likewise discovers the exotic source of the lottery sys- 
tem. But this more distinctly appears from the pro- 
viso of the act, which saves from the general prohi- 
bition, " all state lotteries enacted and licensed by act 
of Parliament in Great Britain" There is no 
doubt the parent country taught her imitative off- 
spring to domesticate the lottery, by pointing out its 
manifold uses. The lottery, then, is a weed which is 
not indigenous to this soil. It did not spring up in 
this country, the result of necessity or the dictate 
of pecuniary expediency. In the enactment referred 
to, # our ancestors pronounced it to be a mischievous 
and unlawful game — detrimental to youth and ruinous 
to the poor — the source of fraud and dishonesty — 
alike hurtful to industry, commerce, and trade — and 
baneful to the interests of good citizenship, morality, 
and virtue. 

* Vide Note 1, Appendix. 



11 

Let us take a rapid survey of its tendency as a pub- 
lic ?neasure 9 and of its operation upon those who come 
within the sphere of its influence, both as the source 
of pecuniary emolument or ruin to its votaries, and 
as a meritorious instrument of adventure, or the means 
of idleness, dissipation, licentiousness and crime. 

The English Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed 
the lottery, for a long series of years, as a justifia- 
ble public measure, on the principle of its being a 
voluntary tax assumed by the adventurers. Can it, 
upon any just view of the subject, be regarded in the 
light of a tax? Does the ostensible sum to be levied 
constitute the whole of the assessment? And is it 
equal in its effects, in the imposition of a burden which 
is proporcioned to the ability of the citizen ? 

It is a fundamental principle of taxation in all civi- 
lized societies, that it should spring from some subject 
either of property or enjoyment. It is entirely con- 
sistent with the acknowledged principles of govern- 
ment, that the citizen should pay for the enjoyment of 
a luxury as well as his lands and houses ; but that can- 
not with any propriety be termed taxation, which looks 
to no such substantive basis of assessment. Nothing 
exists upon which it can be founded. Would the ad- 
venturer in the lottery, when he loses thousands in a 
single drawing, be reconciled to his misfortune, by the 
ingenious suggestion, that he has only been paying his 
taxes ? Does he embark in his purchases upon the 
ground of discharging a debt due to the state, or be- 
A3 



12 

cause he indulges the delusive hope of receiving a 
golden return? If he does not consent to his loss 
upon any but the principle of individual hazard, it is 
idle to speak of voluntary taxation. Things should 
be known by their appropriate titles. It is the gros- 
sest solecism, and for the purposes of artifice, to de- 
signate the lottery a tax, while it is a contrivance for 
raising revenue out of the credulity, the weaknesses, 
and the vicious propensities of the lowest classes of 
the people. 

But the asserted right to raise money by lottery, 
for other reasons, bears no resemblance to the taxing 
privilege. In the sum specified to be raised by any 
given lottery, the whole amount actually to be drained 
from the pockets of the people, never appears. It is 
a striking feature of the system, that all is wrapt in 
concealment and obscurity. The proposition, for in- 
stance, to raise by lottery ten or fifteen thousand dol- 
lars, which is to be expended in public charity or 
internal improvements, might be supposed from the 
smallness of the sum, to be unworthy of serious ob- 
jection. As the grant confeis only the power to 
offers, few tickets for sale, the purchase of which is 
free from constraint, and resting wholly upon the 
volition of the buyers, any opposition might be deemed 
unreasonable, if not captious. And, when the desti- 
nation of the sum is considered, it appears to be so 
meritorious upon the score of benevolence or public 
spirit, that the measure, from meeting at first with 



13 

acquiescence, is hailed with popularity. But is it 
taken into the account, that to raise so trivial an 
amount, sometimes requires the issuing of schemes 
approaching to a million of dollars? Let us refer to 
examples. Two lotteries in Maine, authorized in 
1831, according to a calculation which has been 
made, issued schemes to the amount of sixty thousand 
dollars. These issues enabled the managers to leave 
a surplus in the treasury, beyond the expenses, of 
fourteen dollars and twenty-one cents J The legis- 
lature of Massachusetts granted to the town of Ply- 
mouth, in the year 1812, the privilege of raising by 
lottery, the sum of sixteen thousand dollars, for the 
purpose of completing certain repairs in the Plymouth 
Beach. After the lapse of nine years, during which 
period classes had been drawn amounting in the 
aggregate to eight hundred and eighty -six thousand, 
four hundred and thirty-nine dollars, and seventy- 
five cents, it was ascertained that only nine thousand, 
eight hundred and seventy six dollars, and seventeen 
cents, was contributed to the object in view ! Another 
remarkable instance is presented to the same effect, 
in the Union Canal Lottery, authorized by the legis- 
lature of Pennsylvania. This grant, which may be 
dated in 1811, was to raise $340,000 for the purposes 
of the Union Canal. By a contract entered into with 
certain enterprising gentlemen of New York, schemes 
were permitted to be issued to an indefinite extent, 
upon the annual payment into the hands of the com- 



14 

pany, of the sum of $30,000. In pursuance of this 
contract, and under the assumed authority of the 
grant, schemes were issued during the year 1832, to 
the amount of five millions, three hundred and thir- 
teen thousand, and fifty-six dollars. Including the 
sum of $6,479,136 as the estimate for the following 
year, schemes were issued exceeding altogether the 
astonishing aggregate of thirty -three millions of dot- 
larsl* If the career of this lottery, so unreasonable and 
portentous, had not been arrested in the year 1833, 
it would be difficult to conjecture how many millions 
more would be assessed upon the people, under the 
pretence that the amount of the grant had not been 
attained. 

It thus appears, that to collect a few dollars by 
means of a lottery, the assessment must be thou- 
sands ; and if the object be to accumulate thousands, 
no less than millions are to be extracted from the 
pockets of the people ! What in all probability would 
become of a nation whose infatuated government 
were to employ, as its only dependence, a system of 
taxation so insidious in its effects, and so absorbing 
in its requisitions 1 

But the inequality of its operation renders the 
lottery equally oppressive and intolerable. Who are 
the chief contributors to this frightful and unheard of 
taxation ? Are they the wealthy, the intelligent, 
and the wary — those who can afford to adventure, 
and are able to penetrate the subtleties of speculation 

* Vide Note 2, Appendix. 



15 

— or the needy, the ignorant, the weak, and the des- 
perate ? Seek information at the lottery offices and 
the periodical drawings. Behold there the large 
group of unprotected humanity, whose fate the tram- 
mels of its fascination have so unresistingly secured ! 
Behold there the chimney-sweep, the servant, the ap- 
prentice, the clerk, and the man of slender means 
ambitious of becoming suddenly wealthy ! These 
comprise the largest portion of the taxed — of those 
who are seduced by the splendid lures of the lottery 
craft. The want and distress which it occasions 
among these, furnish a sufficient reason for branding 
it as one of the most iniquitous and mischievous sys- 
tems of taxation, so called, ever invented by human 
ingenuity. Its effects upon the indigent, may be il- 
lustrated by a fact in the history of the lottery in 
Turin. For several days previous to the drawings, 
the usual supply of provisions is not carried to market, 
because, about that period, the poor are in the habit 
of famishing themselves, with a view to embarking 
more largely in lottery adventures. 

But this view proceeds upon an assumption that 
he lottery is profitable as a branch of revenue, which 
is by no means susceptible of demonstration. It leads 
its votary from the safe paths of provident thrift and 
sober industry to the labyrinths of visionary hope, 
and substitutes the idle dreams of speculation for the 
certain promises of reward for useful and assiduous 
effort. When the energy of the character is laid 



16 

waste by ignoble or inglorious pursuits, dissipation 
and extravagance soon render the victim incapable of 
supporting himself. From a respectable citizen he 
soon degenerates into a degraded pauper. It has been 
calculated in England, where the lottery is merely a 
fiscal operation for the benefit of the treasury, that 
the pauperism directly engendered by it, more than 
absorbs the revenue it yields. 

In this country where it has never been employed 
as the pecuniary handmaid of government, the loss 
arising from its concomitant pauperism, has no fund 
from which it may claim an indemnity. We then 
tolerate a system which induces domestic distresses ? 
vices and crimes of every diversity, to raise money 
which is swallowed up by the public charges it is the 
means of entailing ! 

If the lottery be indefensible as a public measure 
upon any ground upon which it may be placed, we 
are reduced to the necessity of inquiring, whether it 
is permitted to exist without reflection and regardless 
of consequences, or because public opinion has not 
been enlightened on the subject of its enormity? We 
believe the latter ; and for the purpose of giving some 
exposition of its direful and lamentable effects, we 
propose to exhibit by well authenticated examples, 
some of the evils which owe to it existence. 

A comparison between lotteries and manual chance 
will convince any one that the lottery is the most 
seductive and injurious of all systems of gaming. We 



17 

are not desirous of concealing any of the horrors of 
the Palais Royal of Paris, nor of drawing a veil over 
the atrocities which are there performed, the fortunes 
wrecked, or the suicides committed, but we might 
contend upon facts not to be assailed, and upon rea- 
soning plainly deduced, that the establishment of a 
Palais Royal in Philadelphia, or in any of our prin- 
cipal cities, is less to be deplored, because less di6u- 
sive in its influence, than the continuance of our pre- 
sent lotteries. For the purposes of a fair contrast we 
may refer to Scott's Visit to Paris in 1814, as a book 
which gives a competent insight into that scene of 
debauchery. This single instance is selected, because 
from the protection which play receives from the go- 
vernment of France, as a means of revenue, and 
from a peculiar proclivity in the passions of the peo- 
ple, gambling is there made to present a spectacle of 
abandonment and crime deplorable without example. 
Can we oppose to a picture such as manual chance 
there displays, aught so dreadful and terrific in the 
effects of the lottery? It would be an easy task to 
portray, by a stroke, in colours sufficiently dark and 
hideous, the true aspect of the latter, and to ask 
whether the horrors of the Palais Royal w 7 ould not 
dwindle in the comparison '? Would it be difficult to 
show that if the lottery in Paris should bring nearly 
seven millions of francs annually into the national 
treasury, and produce, according to Dupin, one hun- 
dred suicides in the same period, that even in France, 



18 

it must present a black and abhorrent visage ? But 
declining an extended comparison, because it can 
prove neither useful nor agreeable, we propose in the 
course of this treatise, to exhibit the influences of 
the lottery by cases and examples, and to substitute a 
series of dry but well authenticated facts for the easier 
task of general description. 



CHAPTER II. 

It may be proper, before referring to the lottery as it 
exists in this country, to review its history and effects 
in England, whence we have derived it. It will be 
recollected, that there the public coffers w r ere sup- 
posed to be enriched by it as an instrument of revenue, 
and that it was guarded by laws of great severity. 
The committee appointed by the House of Commons 
in the year 1808, examined persons in various 
walks of life, upon the evils of the lottery in general,as 
well as upon its imperfections as a legal system. Crimes 
of every dye were found to be committed, suicides 
were frequent, and the extent of legal insurances 
which it introduced, was greater than could have en- 
tered into the imaginations of its enemies. The effect 



19 

of recent enactments, intended to be remedial of 

abuses, formed a fruitful topic of inquiry. It was 

ascertained that these prevailed, notwithstanding the 

most vigilant, cautious and comprehensive legislation ; 
and it was believed that no laws were competent to 

^heir suppression. We may observe in presenting a 
synopsis of that portion of the evidence which throws 
light upon the lottery in general, that no extracts can 
convey an adequate idea of the want, misery, and 
crime, of which the system was shown to be the parent. 
In the testimony of Robert Baker, Esq. a police 
magistrate of ten years standing, given before the 
committee, several striking instances are related, 
which had. come under his notice, of frauds commit- 
ted, and of the facilities which were given to forgery. 
His opinion was, that the money collected for the 
public, by no means countervailed the evils and dis- 
tresses growing out of practices connected with the 
lottery. One case is related, which, as it shows the 
class of people to which the Tottery proves most 
detrimental, we shall give in his own language: 

" I remember one very strong" instance of distress four or five years 
ago. It was the case of a journeyman who belonged to a club, which 
club purchased a lottery ticket which came up a great prize. The share 
of this man was £100, or thereabouts; he had been an industrious, 
working man before, and he was persuaded by his friends to invest the 
money in the stocks in the joint names of himself and his wife, in or« 
■der to prevent his making way with it. He did so ; but he soon got 
into habits of idleness, now he was possessed of the money. It was 
to this cause to be attributed that he changed his habits of industry to 

B 



20 

those of drunkenness and idleness, and destroyed all his domestic com- 
forts. It was the ruin of the family." 

In a written statement which Baker afterwards 
submitted to the committee, he expresses himself thus: 

" I am most decidedly of opinion, that the lotteries have the worst 
possible effects upon the morals of the people, inasmuch as they afford 
a ground-work for, and give a sort of public sanction to, that spirit of 
gambling which is so prevalent among the lower orders. That the 
practice of insuring frequently occasions crimes there can be no doubt. 
That it produces distress to a very great degree is still more clear. — 
Another most serious evil, frequently arising from the same source, is 
the dissention and misery it occasions in families. — The bare possibility 
of obtaining a large sum in return for a small advance, is so strong an 
inducement with the lower classes to adventure, the ingenuity and pro- 
fits of the persons whose interest it is to excite and keep alive in them 
the spirit of gambling are so great, that I am satisfied nothing short of 
the total discontinuance of lotteries will put an end to the mischiefs." 

In a note subjoined to his communication, he adds : 

u It is a common observation among manufacturers and master- 
tradesmen, that they find more difficulty in keeping the persons they 
employ steadily at work, during the drawing of the lottery than at any 
other time." 

The Rev Wm. Gurney, who had been six years 
minister of the Free Chapel of St. Giles, deposed that 
in visiting among his parishioners, he found much of 
their domestic trials had their origin in the lottery ; 
that it was the fruiful source of conjugal differences ; 
that it was a a very general cause of distress ;" and 
that such was the infatuation of those who had once 
indulged, money was thrown away upon adventures, 
*? when the children have been starving, or at least 



21 

Wanting the common necessaries of life." His own 
language in another part of his narrative, will better 
illustrate the severity of its inflictions upon the poorer 
classes of society, than the most successful attempt at 
abridgment. 

u I know of a family in Molborn," says he, " the last of whom died 
in an alms-house, owing- to the lottery. This person was a widow T . 
She v.as in a good line of business as a silk-dyer ; which t suppose 
brought her in about £400 a-year, clear. The foreman she had was 
in the habit of insuring, he was led astray, and they insured to the 
amount of £300 or ,£400 a-night, although the foreman had only .£33 
a-year wages. It appeared, on his decease, he had insured immense 
sums of money. He died insolvent ; I acted as his executor, and paid 
three or four shillings in the pound for him. He had received a great 
many bills for his mistress, which he had never crossed out, and he 
ruined her. She was not able to pay three shillings in the pound. She 
was obliged to go into an alms-house, and she died there in four or five 
months. A gentleman who drew the foreman into the snare was ruin- 
ed by it. He formerly kept his carriage, and lived in Queen's Square. 
It was like intoxication with him. If a man gets into the habit h« 
don't leave it. — I know of another very remarkable case. The man 
was a coachman. The family consisted of the man, his wife, and an 
orphan child they took care of. They resolved, as soon as they bought 
some tickets, to insure them, which they understood was legal. They 
got each of them one-sixteenth of a £20,000 prize, the coachman, his 
wife, and the child. From that time the man became a noted gambler 
in the lottery. He went out of his mind, and he was always raving 
about the lottery. He has since recovered his senses. His wife fretted 
herself to death. I attended her in her last moments. — I have known 
several instances in which I have given money to relieve the distresses 
of persons gambling in the lottery, which has been taken from them 
immediately at my own door. To one woman I gave five shillings, to 



22 

buy bread with for herself and her children. I gave it as treasurer to 
a benevolent society. Her husband took it away, and went to one 0£ 
those collectors of insurances and laid it out, and they were obliged to 
go to the overseer of the poor to get relief that night, otherwise they 
would have been starved. — There is another instance of a young wo- 
man now at Botany Bay. She had insured three numbers, which she 
had dreamed about, and she procured money by improper means, which 
led her to her fate." 

William Hale, a silk-manufacturer, and treasurer of 
the poor rates, gives it as his opinion, very emphati- 
cally expressed, that nothing is so pernicious to the 
labouring poor as the lottery — that it is the prolific 
parent of disorders and crimes — that no other mode of 
gambling is so baneful — and that its evils are inherent 
and altogether irremediable. 

M If," he says : " I might give my opinion of the ill effects of the lottery, 
of the influence it has in corrupting the people, — and if I might form that 
opinion from the appearances in Spital-fields, I should be led to conclude 
that there is no circumstance which conduces so much as the lottery 
to make the lower orders of the people bad husbands, bad wives, bad 
children, and bad servants. I know no one thing which has been pro- 
ductive of so many evils and so much suicide as the lottery. There is 
hardly a year but one or more have hung themselves, or cut their throats 
from gambling iu the lottery." 

On a second examination he said : 

44 I have conversed with several persons who have had to do with 
parochial concerns, and they all agree in the beggary produced from 
this cause ; and I am convinced, that, independently of the depravity 
and guilt it occasions, there is more lost than gained by the lottery to go' 
vernment." 

The Rev. Brownlow Ford, the ordinary of New- 



23 

gate, who had filled that station for a period of ten 
years, deposed, that the lottery was the author of great 
poverty and distress—that it was the acknowledged 
origin of much crime — and that it was the occasion 
of bringing many persons to the gallows. He says, 

« 4 When I have put the question to melafactors, * What first drove you 
to crime ?' the answer has been * It was poverty from buying and insur 
ing in the lottery S " 

The evidence of Hector Essex, a pawnbi oker, who 
had been in the business twenty- five years, is pregnam 
with proofs of the wonderful infatuation of persons 
engaged either in the purchase of tickets, or their in- 
insurance, by pawning plate, linen, beds, and the 
common necessaries of life, to obtain money, which 
was ventured and lost. He speaks of women as being 
most captivated by the allurements of the game, and 
alleges, that discord and bankruptcy, the distress and 
dispersion of families, always marched in its train. 
One instance is given of a female, who, though always 
unsuccessful, persevered until her husband was ruined 
When informed of the fact, he drowned himself in a 
fit of despair. 

Such are some of the facts elicited by the examin- 
ations of the committee of the House of Commons, 
whose report led to enactments, assuasive, they were 
considered, of the complicated and accumulated evils 
of the lottery. Other testimony shows what it is here 
unnecessary to quote — the ingenious and multiplied 

expedients of the lottery brokers for evading the laws* 
B2 



24 

as well as the perfidy of the government officers in 
winking at transgressions, and partaking of the fruits 
of illicit adventures. The whole report discloses a 
scene of iniquity so multiform, and of misery so hope- 
less, as to sicken and appal the mind. The restric- 
tions intended by new statutes soon ceased to exhibit 
any mitigation in their effects, till at last the whole 
system was abscinded as the most noxious and venom- 
ous excrescence, that could deform the legislation 
or poison the moral atmosphere of England. This 
temporary suspension of the system was preceded by 
events, which, perhaps will ever be remembered in 
the annals of self-destruction. A scheme was formed 
in London, displaying several magnificent prizes of 
£50,000 and £100,000, which tempted to ventures of 
very large amount, and the night of the drawing was 
signalized by fifty cases of suicide! With these 
tragedies terminated, for a brief period, the career of 
the lottery in the English Isle. 

From such facts what opinion are we authorized 
to form of the magnitude of this evil ? An evil 
which paralizes industry, destroys domestic concord, 
saps the foundation of correct principles, and leads 
to the commission of the darkest crimes in the 
criminal calendar? What ought we to think of 
those laws which give it protection? As well 
might a legislature cherish by the public bounty, a 
monster whose pestilential and baneful breath scatter- 



25 

ed deformity, disease and death widely over the 
country. 

But the immense revenue of a million pounds ster- 
ling, which thetreasury annually derived from the lot- 
tery, was too great a temptation* to be long resisted. 
It was soon again introduced into the Budget, as an 
item, which, notwithstanding its plain consequences in 
the extinction of revenue, " the state of the finances" 
could not forego. Large sums were year after year 
levied upon the people, by this detestable expedient to 
fill the coffers of the treasury. It is related upon good 
authority, that the annual subsidy has seldom been less 
than a million, since the period of the revolution. If 
it required the issuing of schemes in the Union Canal 
to the amount of thirty-three millions for the pur* 
pose of collecting $340,000, we may presume that the 
annual sales in England must be startling. 

The evils of the system again invoked the attention 
of the British public in 1819, and gave rise to an in- 
teresting debate in Parliament. The propriety of its 
continuance was discussed by such men as Lyttleton, 
Buxton, Wilberforce, Canning and Castlereagh. The 
whole subject was passed in review — its erroneous 
policy — its irremediable mischiefs — its sure tendencies 
and ascertained results — but all gave way to its in- 
vincible necessity, as a means of revenue. The 
committee of 1808 had disclosed one pregnant and 
overwhelming fact, which furnished to various argu- 
ments, a convincing and unanswerable reply. It was 



26 

ascertained that if the lottery were abolished; the in- 
creased consumption of exciseable articles would 
more than supply its loss to the treasury. In vindica- 
tion of the system, the Chancellor, it is alleged, as- 
sumed a position which is irreconcilable with all cor- 
rect principles of government and every sound notion 
of ethics. He is said to have asserted that there was 
always floating in society a given quantity of vicious 
inclinations, which he had a right to turn to the best 
account, — that as the spirit of gambling w r as rife, it 
was justifiable, in finance, to make it ancillary to the 
public burthens. It is not easy to decide, whether 
such a sentiment is more incompatible with policy 
considered merely as a matter of profit, or at vari- 
ance with the plain principles of morality. Shall we 
pamper vices because they exist ! Is it enlightened 
prudence or true virtue to hold out lures to the simple, 
the ignorant, and the credulous, which if successful, 
must debase their characters and render them dis- 
honest citizens or dependent paupers ? But without 
formally controverting a dogma which teaches such 
erroneous doctrines, we may leave it to the silent 
reflection of the philanthropist, satisfied that he will 
discard it as unsound, false and illiberal. — In 1823 the 
lottery was again sought to be propagated, but the 
tide of popular favour had so violently set against it 
as to require the salvo, that it was proposed for the 
last time. — Whether it has not again been recently- 
revived is not certainly known, but surely the British 



27 

nation has been abundantly admonished of its intrinsic 
banefulness to induce its entire relinquishment.* Upon 
the invention of Savings Banks, for the benefit of the 
poor, it was found to present the greatest impediment 
to their success. But during the period of its tempo 
rary discontinuance, these institutions recovered from 
their languishing condition, and gradually advanced 
in their deposits and usefulness. 

If the spirit of liberty be indeed rising in Great Bri- 
tain, let the political sentinel rear aloft and higher the 
banner of private virtue and enlightened sentiment. If 
the people are to express their power, may it not be a 
brute, animal foice, but may it be tempered by moral 
restraints and virtuous impulses. Let the lottery 
at least be weeded out as fatal to the true spirit and 
best interests of freedom. 



* A recent English newspaper informs us that the last state lottery 
was drawn in England in October 1826, and that France also has an- 
nounced her intention to abandon the lottery system* 



CHAPTER 111. 



The pernicious effects of the lottery system, be* 
comes more apparent, the more nearly it is examined. 
The principles upon which it is defended, its history 
abroad and it will be seen our experience at home, all 
recognize it as a private evil and a public reproach. This 
will be still more perceptible if we reflect upon its incon- 
sistency with those great moral institutions which dis- 
tinguish the present age, and its effect, upon individu- 
al character and happiness. Let us then take a glance 
at its operation upon some of the former, and con- 
template its private and domestic influence. 

There are few governments which do not wish to 
promote honourable sentiments and habitual industry 
among the people. This at least is the theory of mos* 
political societies, which are framed on the principles o 
civil freedom and social equality. When we foster 
industry and reward genius, when we establish in- 
stitutions of learning or give birth to those of benevo- 
lence, we intend to repress idleness and vice, and to 



29 

bring into exercise the better dispositions of the mind 
and heart. Is it compatible with these intentions to 
choke the seeds of virtue and industry, by preventing 
encouragement to idleness, and offering nutriment to 
vice? France, when she receives the enormous sum 
of twelve millions of francs per annum from her 
gaming tables and her lotteries, seems to act upon 
the principle that so large a sum in her public coffers, 
countervails the private injury they inflict. Thus it 
may have been with Great Britain, after Parliamentary 
enquiry had pro\ed its ruinous influences. Those states 
of our republican Union which adhere to the system 
of raising money by lottery, likewise adopt the prin- 
ciple, that public aggrandizement is preferable to public 
and private virtue. But why is the public money ex- 
pended for the suppression of vice ? For what pur- 
poses are Houses of Refuge and Penitentiaries for soli- 
tary confinement 1 Why are schools established at the 
public expense, for moral and literary instruction ? The 
lottery system is in direct conflict with the policy of 
these. The one seeks to benefit the morals of society 
at the public charge, and the other to raise money by 
the destruction of morality. Is it consistent with 
enlightened policy to found institutions, whose profes- 
sed object is to elevate the tone of popular virtue, 
while a system is permitted to remain, whose acknow- 
leged operation is to impair or destroy their precious 
results ? Is it the perfection of wisdom in legislation 
to collect money by means of an agent which fosters 



30 

vice, while immense sums are even generously expend- 
ed in its suppression ? 

Would licensed gambling tables be introduc- 
tive of so much distress, such variety and black- 
ness of crime? In the first place, the lottery 
scatters mischief with a more prodigal hand than 
other kinds of gambling. It holds out enticements 
which reach every class in the community. It has 
attractions for the poor as well as the rich, for the 
concealed speculator no less than the avowed libertine. 
The subdivision of chances is so minute as to 
include among the adventurers, the apprentice to a 
trade, the indented girl, and the chimney sweep. But 
it does not stop here* With its own undistingulshing 
spirit, it sacrifices older victims, and ascends into 
higher walks. It penetrates into situations which 
would prove impervious to the contaminating influ- 
ences of ordinary gambling. While in common 
games, the personal agency which is necessary, must 
expose the infamy of participation, the odium of hold- 
ing tickets may be prevented, by committing to ano- 
ther the charge of the purchase. It is thus, that per- 
sons pretending to respectability, have been known to 
speculate in lotteries, without incurring the disgrace 
which, in most communities, is incident to the prac- 
tice of gambling. 

The risks are greater in the lottery than in other 
gaming. The chance of the latter may be as one to 
one, or greater, at the discretion of the player. The 
hazards of the former are frequently in the pro- 



31 

portion of one to thousands. In the one, loss ol 
fortune may ensue in a single night. But in the other 
the excitements of hope and the agony of disappoint- 
ment alternate in such quick succession, that the un- 
happy adventurer has a protracted struggle with the 
fickleness of chance, before he can know the result of 
the contest In the meantime he is rendered a useless 
not to say a pernicious member of society. His prin- 
ciples are contaminated by familiar association with 
infamy and guilt, and his habits debauched by indulg- 
ing in the excesses to which he has been driven. 

The life of a regular gamester may admit of useful 
employment in the intervals of play. "But the adven- 
turer in the lottery broods by day and night over his 
tickets — his imagination is filled with the grand idea 
of possessing the capital prize — and his mind is held 
in that state of intensity and excitement, which admits 
of nothing to divert it from the one great, and absorb- 
ing object of its contemplation. Ordinary gambling 
may ruin the victim of its infatuation at once, and 
drive him to suicide, or he may borrow .from his suc- 
cessful companion, beyond the possibility of repay- 
ment, in the hope of retrieving his broken fortunes. 
The speculator in the lottery, on the other hand, 
is not vanquished at a blow, butin the caprices or ac- 
cidents of the wheel, though often the loser, he is some . 
times the gainer — new stimulus is thus imparted to his 
cupidity — he is urged on to new ventures — continued 

ill luck nourishes the hope of its speedy termination, — 
C 



32 

and great good fortune only wh§ts his appetite for 
greater ; 

" As in the dropsy, if indulged the thirst, 
The patient joys, but his disease is nurst"* 

He soon finds that he is incapable of a higher effort 
than discussing the merits of a scheme, or lounging 
upon the counter of a lottery office, so that that which 
was resorted to as promising a great blessing, has be- 
come the bane of his happiness and the solemn busi- 
ness of his life. When his means are exhausted, and 
his friends lose their confidence, he cannot gratify his 
passion for the game, or his pruriency for its suc- 
cesses, by appealing, like the regular gamester, to the 
fortunate winner for a new supply. Driven, as well 
by the desperate necessity of ministering to his ex- 
citement, as by depraved principles and reckless de- 
spair, he is ready for the perpetration of any enor- 
mity. Which then has the preponderance of evil as 
an engine of state? If the risks be greater by 
which the prospect of loss must be commensu- 
rately increased — if it be more likely to lead to in- 
curable idleness — if its inevitable and certain tendency 
be to intemperance, to perfidy, to fraud, and to crime 
— and if its pernicious influence be more widely dif- 
fused — we can be at-no loss to which to attribute the 
loathsome superiority. But placing the lottery upon 
the same level with other gambling — upon the footing 
of a great moral, and in our country especially, a 
great political evil — may we ask whether its continu- 

* Crescit indulgens sibi dini3 hydrops. — Hon. 



33 

ance by law should be permitted, under a form of go- 
vernment which depends for its existence and preser- 
vation upon the high minded purity of its members ? 
Whether that which is so directly at war with the 
whole policy of this country, whose every interest 
consists in making wealth the fruit of intelligent in- 
dustry, and presenting incentives to useful and honour- 
able exertion, should be cherished and nurtured by 
the genial sunshine of protective legislation 1 

But the lottery is not only injurious in the abstract, 
as contributing to great pecuniary distress and moral 
wrong, but the system as conducted in Pennsylvania, 
and no doubt from the existence of similar causes 
elsewhere, superinduced additional evil. Every means 
seemed to be devised, every incitement resorted to 
by the guardians of the lottery, to render it as ex- 
tensively and radically baneful as possible. Let us 
take a brief view of its administration in Pennsyl- 
vania, since the remarks which apply to it here, 
may, with very few exceptions, be made in relation 
to other parts of the Union in which the system pre- 
vails. 

For a long period there existed in Pennsylvania 
but one lottery which had even the semblance of 
legal authority. The franchise prevailed under dif- 
ferent names and with different modifications from 
the year 1795. It was granted to the Union Canal 
in the year 1811, and continued the exclusive pro- 
perty of that company, until the year 1833, when the 



34 

lottery system in Pennsylvania was entirely abolished. 
Though an act of assembly passed in the year 1792, 
prohibited the sale of foreign lottery tickets under a 
severe pecuniary penalty, and the act of 1811 incor- 
porating the. Union Canal, greatly increased the for- 
feiture, yet the law, from the time of its enactment, 

was constantly infringed with scarcely an attempt at 
concealment. 

The rapid increase of lottery offices in Phila- 
delphia, illustrates the progressive character of the 
evil. In 1809, three offices only are recollected to 
have existed throughout the whole city ; in 1827, the 
number was computed at sixty; in 1831, they were 
ascertained to amount to one hundred and seventy- 
seven; and in the year 1833, the number was esti- 
mated at above two hundred. In these offices were 
vended, during the year 1832, tickets in four hun- 
dred and twenty schemes, whose prizes amount to 

$53,136,930. as may be seen by the subjoined tabular 
statement. 



States authorizing Lotteries. 


Amount of Prizes. 


No. of Schemes. 


New York, - - - 

Virginia, 

Connecticut, - 

Rhode Island, ----- 
Delaware & North Carolina, (joint 7 
grants,) ----- 5 
Maryland, - - - 
Delaware, 


$13,188,818 
10,010,153 
7,638,201 
7,184,486 
3,174,324 
2,028,162 
614*408 


73 
65 

81 
62 

34 
17 
29 


* Aggregate for 1 1 months, 

Add one-eleventh, (to complete the year,) 


$43,838,552 
3,985,322 


361 
33 


Aggregate for one year, 

If to this be added the amount of the Union 
Canal Lotteries drawn within the same 
period, ---,--- 


§47,823,874 
5,313 ? 056 


394 
26 


Grand Total, - 


$53,136,930 


420 



* Taken from an accurate list of schemes up tq December 1, 183*3, 



35 

. Of these four hundred and twenty schemes, whose 
tickets were openly for sale in Philadelphia during 
the year 1832, all were expressly prohibited by law, 
except the twenty-six issued by the Union Canal. 
Thus the people of Pennsylvania were made to con- 
tribute to the internal improvements of New York, 
Virginia, Connecticut, Rhode Island, North Caro- 
lina, Maryland, and Delaware, as well as to pay a 
large sum to a company of their own state, whose grant 
was believed to be expired. Nor are the other states in 
which there are large cities, exempt from similar 
burthens. Each state is taxed for the local conve- 
nience of others, in proportion to the facilities pre- 
sented for the imposition. But Pennsylvania, by being 
the great mart for nearly all the lotteries in the United 
States, had reason for more emphatic complaint. In 
defiance of all her legislative prohibitions of foreign 
lotteries, her citizens were annually subsidized to an 
immense amount; perhaps for a church in Rhode 
Island, or a rail road through the Dismal Swamp, or 
for other improvements in which she had as remote 
a prospect of interest or advantage. 

The amount of purchases in the United States,, we 
cannot pretend to. assert, but the pecuniary loss per 
week, to the people of Philadelphia, was estimated at 
thirty thousand dollars. This slim was nearly lost to 
the people, for the only benefit they received, was thr 
inconsiderable sum of thirty thousand dollars per 

annum, supposed to be applied to the purposes of in- 
C2 



36 

ternal navigation. It follows that the pecuniary dis- 
tress — the idleness and crime superinduced — were 
inflicted upon the citizens of Pennsylvania, almost 
without the hope of benefit or the expectation of return. 

The drawings in Philadelphia were frequent, and it 
is believed about every fortnight throughout the year. 
Marly yet bear in lively remembrance the assembla- 
ges at the Arcade on these occasions. Hundreds of 
wretched persons were collected, whose intense 
anxiety might have been read in their flushed and 
distorted countenances. We may yet fancy we hear 
their loud imprecations and blasphemy, mingled with 
the scarcely audible whisper of profane, delirious, and 
intoxicating joy, upon the announcement of a prize! 
We may yet follow, in imagination, the motley throng 
upon dispersion, to witness the agonizing disappoint- 
ment and despair, which ninety-nine out of a hundred 
too plainly expressed ! Yet to the relief of these, hope 
soon came in the chances of a future drawing. r i hey 
again attended, to hear with a beating pulse and pal- 
pitating heart, another disappointment in another— 
blank! Were not such spectacles and scenes a dis- 
grace to humanity? 

In the two hundred lottery offices in Philadelphia, 
it is estimated that there were five or six hundred 
persons employed. These persons fattened upon their 
deluded fellow-citizens. Boys of the tenderest age 
were initiated into all the mysteries of the craft, 
The mysteries were those of falsehood and rapine, 



37 

The. arts that were practised to induce a purchase, 
and the cheats devised for robbing the wretched victim 
of his prize, when he happened to draw one, are too 
notorious to need elucidation by example. It would 
be endless to notice all the species of petty frauds 
which were daily committed; such as disposing of 
Jive and seven quarters of tickets, Selling and insuring 
tickets which were long before drawn, and the for- 
gery of tickets and prizes. 

Tickets were so subdivided into minute parts, that 
12^ cents was sufficient to purchase a chance. Thus 
a lure was held out to youth of both sexes and of all 
conditions, and every motive was presented for steal- 
ing the trivial sum which gave an opportunity for the 
capital prize ! The venders, as if to secure customers 
at any hazard, had standing current accounts w T ith 
girls in kitchens, apprentices to trades, and young 
clerks in stores, who, from month to month, were 
debited with tickets* and credited with prizes. 

These unprotected beings were importuned in the 
streets by some emissary of a lottery office, and if per- 
suasion were insufficient to induce a purchase, the 
tickets were sometimes thrust upon them. Hand-bills 
of the most insidious and seductive character found 
their way into stores, taverns and kitchens. Placards, 
pictures and signs, powerfully appealing to the imagi- 
nations of the simple, were exposed to public view* 
Every art which experience had suggested and inge- 
nuity could devise, was applied to for the purpose of 
deceiving the credulous and alluring the unwarv. 



38 

A prize was always promised upon the purchase of 
a package.* The excited expectant after spending his 
last farthing with the dazzling magnificence of thou- 
sands before his eyes, might draw indeed a prize 
which — 

Kept the promise to the ear, 
But broke it to the hope, 

in the loss of more than half his venture. The result 
to the unhappy victim at last was, the privation of all 
he possessed, and insolvency to a frightful amount, if 
indeed it was not attended with other consequences 
still more fearful and calamitous. 

* A package is a quantity of tickets, tied up together, with their num- 
bers so disposed as to render small prizes certain. 



CHAPTER IV. 



From such a melancholy exhibition of the abuses 
of lotteries, and the number of individuals sustained 
and enriched by them, the inference is unavoidable, 
that the number of adventurers must be proportiona- 
bly great. It is certain, and may be relied upon as a 
fact incohtestably proved, that hundreds of persons 
in Philadelphia depended on the lotteries for subsis- 
tence, and pursued no other means of livelihood ! 
Can it be believed, that. in a city like Philadelphia, 
there could exist so much crime, dissipation, and idle- 
ness 1 In a city where honest and useful exertion has 
ever been well repaid, where benevolence has been 
actively employed to promote virtue by the establish- 
ment of libraries and schools — to prevent vice by the 
institution of a Refuge for young delinquents — and to 
arrest its career by presenting opportunities of reform 
in separate imprisonment? It is nevertheless true' 
that hundreds pursued no other occupation than in- 
spect schemes, purchase tickets, and attend to the 
drawings, with the other venial devices for cozenage 
and fraud, which are its necessary concomitants ! If 



40 

it be the duty of government to encourage idleness, 
that duty may be accomplished through the instru- 
mentality of the lottery. If the objects of laws be to 
introduce domestic unhappiness and every diversity of 
criminal propensity, it is apparent that the lottery will 
well achieve those objects. 

Upon what principle can enlightened legislation, 
having other objects and duties, permit an instrument 
of this sort to continue ? Is it for the value of the 
money raised, or is it because the losses incident to 
lottery speculations, may be considered in the light of 
voluntary taxation ? Its deluded victim does not re- 
gard it as a tax, but as the road to sudden wealth, dis- 
pensing with the necessity of labour. If viewed as 
taxation, it is unjust because it is unequal, and comes 
chiefly from the pockets of the poorest of the people. 
May not money be raised by a mode which is equal 
in its operation, which takes from the rich man in pro- 
portion to his property, and which, not confined to the 
necessitous, will not dry up the means of future sup- 
port, and cut off the possibility of future contribution ? 
If physical improvement be its object, let us not for- 
get what more than countervails the benefit — the mo- 
ral deterioration of the citizen. If revenue be its ob- 
ject, let us not forget that larger expenditures will be 
requisite for the maintenance of paupers and criminals, 
and for the construction of new almshouses and 
new penitentiaries. There is no mode of raising 
money which is so unequal and oppressive — no spe- 



41 

cies of adventure in which the chances are so many 
against the adventurer — none in which the infatuation 
attending it is so powerful and engrossing — none 
which inflicts so much distress — and none which pro- 
duces more general and atrocious criminality. 

The Committee of the House of Commons, before 
referred to, thus express their opinion of the lottery 
as a measure of finance. The sentiments are especi- 
ally true as applied to this country, where the people 
may likewise be characterised as agricultural — 

" Your Committee are conscious that they are far from having 
exhausted the grounds which might he urged, that the lottery ought 
not to he resorted to as a financial resource. The reasoning upon 
them appears to your Committee to apply with peculiar force, to the 
situation, the habits, and all the circumstances of a great manufacturing 
and commercial nation, in which it must be dangerous, in the highest 
degree, to diffuse a spirit of speculation, whereby the mind is misled 
from those habits of continued industry which insure the acquisition 
of comfort and independence, to delusive dreams of sudden and enor- 
mous wealth, which most generally end in abject poverty and com- 
plete misery." 

The great question remains, what will have the 
effect of extirpating so prodigious an evil ? Expe- 
rience has proved, both in England and America, 
that no regulations can palliate its mischiefs, and no 
prohibitions, though armed with penalties, are ade- 
quate to give it a prescribed restriction. If the act 
of 1S05, passed by the Assembly of Pennsylvania, 
for preventing insurances, by forfeitures, be coolly 
contemned — if the acts of 1792 and 1811, likewise 



42 

annexing pecuniary mulcts to the sale of foreign 
tickets be inadequate to their purpose, what confi- 
dence is to be reposed in fines and forfeitures ? Can 
its destruction be otherwise effected than by imposing 
imprisonment as for a criminal offence ? Should not 
that which destroys the peace of families, and is the 
origin of every criminal excess, be itself visited by 
every criminal punishment 1 Nothing less than the 
severest inflictions of the law and the activity of the 
public can secure the former from infraction. 

The severity of legal restraint in one district, will 
not protect society in another. In Pennsylvania, the 
lottery system was wholly abolished by law, in the 
year 1833, but the abolition, it is believed, is little more 
than nominal. No doubt can exist that the law is 
covertly violated in Philadelphia and other parts of 
the state, to an extent inconceivably detrimental. It 
is only through the benevolent agency of disinterested 
and public spirited associations, formed for the pur- 
pose of aiding the public authorities, that these dark 
deeds of mischief can be unveiled to the judicial 
view. 

In Massachussetts after the legal abolition of her 
domestic system, and the prohibition of foreign tic- 
kets, the painful case of Ackers occurred, at once a 

melancholv instance of their baneful and ruinous 

*f 

effects. It was ascertained by a committee of the 
legislature appointed soon after this case of embez- 
zlement and suicide became known, that the trafic 



43 

was carried on to a very great extent, and that in 
the city of Boston alone, it then exceeded a million 
a year. Nothing less than superadded guards and 
penalties, assisted by a society modelled upon similar 
principles with that at Philadelphia*, could stop so 
devious and headlong a torrent. These, it is sup- 
posed, have at length excluded it from the limits of 
Massachussetts. In New York, though the system 
is legally at an end, and the revised Constitution dis- 
ables the legislature from ever making a lottery 
grant, there is reason to believe that the law w T ould 
be infringed but for the existence and patriotic exer- 
tions of a similar society. No grant is in being in 
New Hampshire, and the sale of foreign tickets is 
made penal by successive acts of the legislature. But 
in open defiance of the law, tickets, up to a recent 
period, were sold by nearly every bookseller in the 
state ; and the mania for lottery speculation pervaded 
almost every class of the community. In New Jer- 
sey no grant is known to be in operation. Urgent 
applications for the privilege have been repeatedly 
refused ; and a pecuniary penalty is annexed by law 
to the sale of foreign tickets. The traffic is carried 
on in the face of this prohibition, without even the 
appearance of concealment ; and every art is em- 
ployed to extend and ramify the business. In Ohio 
Vermont, Maine, Michigan, Louisiana, and Connec- 
ticut, the lottery system is destroyed, so far as its 

*Vide Note 3, Appendix. 

D 



44 

destruction can be effected by the simple authority of 
law. There is no precise information whether in 
these states the law is infracted or observed, but 
judging from what has taken place elsewhere, and 
the adventurous spirit of the trade, it is feared that 
the abolition is only in theory. The importance and 
necessity of forming associations to guard these 
states from the evils they are anxious to eschew — to 
protect their citizens from injury and their laws from 
violation — need scarcely be pressed by formal argu- 
ment. Experience, that sure teacher, has fully 
proved that persona] vigilance will always be requi- 
site to prevent the sale of tickets, since it can never 
with safety be remitted or relaxed, until the system 
is exploded in every section of the confederacy. 

But legislation, however well matured or faithfully 
enforced, is after all but the expressed opinion of the 
hour; for if it be competent for one legislature to 
annul a system in vogue, the next is. equally able to 
restore it. Public sentiment may be stifled on a sud- 
den exigency, and popular feeling be blunted by the 
prevalence of kindred vices. How then shall we en- 
sure to future generations an exemption from this 
moral scourge ? New York has set an example wor- 
thy of her commanding influence and eminent rank 
in the confederacy, in forever extinguishing the 
power to grant a lottery under her Constitution. 
The states of Maryland and Tennessee have imi- 
tated this prudence by inserting in their Constitu- 



45 

tions a similar provision. Will Pennsylvania prove 
coldly indifferent to the moral safety of the state, to 
the highest interests of her citizens, by omitting what 
may be so important to their welfare? Will any 
member of the Union, by all the means in her power, 
hesitate to destroy a system which is so fraught with 
moral mischief and political calamity, as well to the 
state in which it prevails, as to her neighbouring and 
distant confederates I But as constitutional restriction 
in every state must be unavoidably delayed, it will de- 
volve upon good citizens, to protect, by their vigi- 
lance and zeal, the rights of morality from insult, 
and existing laws from violation. The theme is com- 
mended to the anxious and deliberate attention of the 
philanthropist and patriot, as incalculably momentous 
to the present well-being of society, and to its future 
prospects. 

In fine, the more the subject is considered, the 
more indefensible it will appear in itself — the more 
incongruous with the general spirit of our institu- 
tions — the more at variance with the happiness of the 
people, and the more inimical to the welfare of the 
country. It is respectfully submitted to the patriotism 
of those states in which it exists, that in destroying 
the lottery, they only weed out a poisonous exotic, 
whose noxious and rank luxuriance, in pervading the 
land and blighting all our indigenous fruits, shows 
itself to be wholly unsuited and repugnant to the 
genius of the American soil. 



y £ 



CHAPTER V. 



If a committee were appointed by each of the state 
legislatures to ascertain from living witnesses the 
effects of lotteries, within their respective jurisdic- 
tions, a mass of private distress and public injury- 
would be brought to light, the magnitude of which 
it is difficult to conceive. We should witness the 
severance of the closest and dearest connexions of 
life; the violation of the sacred vows of wedlock; 
and the disruption of the tender ties of consanguinity 
and nature. Woe would meet our gaze in the vari- 
ous forms of hopeless bankruptcy, cheerless and un- 
mitigated penury, incurable intemperance, and infa- 
mous vice. But it may be well for the reputation of 
the country that some of these dread consequences 
may still be concealed. The colours of the picture 
would be too sombre — the scene, in its collected de- 
formity, too hideous — for exposure to the open day. 
In attempting, therefore, a miniature sketch from 
private sources, of the results which this engine of 



47 

human misery and debasement has effected, we shall 
do all that is within our power, in ranging and 
grouping together a few examples under appropriate 
heads. 

EMBEZZLEMENTS, FRAUDS, LARCENIES, 
AND ROBBERIES. 

It is in the regular course of events, that lottery- 
speculations should finally plunge the speculator into 
deep and complicated guilt. He becomes poor by 
successive losses. His poverty leads him to petty 
villanies. He slowly proceeds from one impropriety 
to another, till at last his feelings become blunted, 
and his reputation is tarnished. Low dissipation, 
and idle phantasms of golden showers, from being 
long indulged, have so impaired his faculties and 
weakened his character, as wholly to destroy his 
ability for any useful pursuit. He looks around for 
assistance, but the avenues are closed. He is in debt 
beyond the- hope of extrication. His native energy 
is gone, and his respectability is wasted. Thus pre- 
pared for some wreckless effort to repair his fortunes, 
where can he seek refuge but in the principles he has 
imbibed; what counsellors can he listen to but his 
desperation and necessities? We quote cases in elu- 
cidation. 

We first give an extract from a letter written by 

Joseph Watson, Esq., formerly Mayor of Philadel- 
D 3 



48 

£hia, who, in addition to his general testimony, gives 
an affecting instance of moral aberration in the de- 
cline of life. 

" 1 do not think it necessary," says he, " to go into a detail of a 
number of cases that occur to my remembrance of the awful effects pro- 
duced on individuals and families by the infatuation of lottery gamb- 
ling. I have known individuals of former good repute and standing 
in society, who, in bitter agony of feeling, have declared to me, that 
they were guilty of breach of trust, larceny, and other crimes, in- 
duced solely by gambling in lotteries, and vested all their property, 
and that of others entrusted to them, in tickets. I will state to you a 
single case, some time, I think, in 1827. A gray -headed old man 
of gentlemanly appearance and acquirements, was brought into the 
police office, charged with picking a poeket; his trunk was searched, 
and in it were found lottery tickets, plans, and schemes for many past 
years. Being asked why so great a quantity of these were found in 
his possession, he answered, in substance, that they were the product 
of his lottery dealings for the last twelve or fifteen years, within which 
period he had actually squandered or expended for tickets as many 
thousand dollars, without at any time having been successful, except 
in trifling prizes — that he had recently spent his last dollar, his last 
ticket had come out a blank, and to prevent starvation, he had made 
the attempt for which he was brought up. This man, it was believed, 
had previously maintained an irreproachable character. I think he 
died a convict, in Walnut Street prison." 

The pernicious and destructive influence of the sys- 
tem is justly depicted by the Hon. John Sergeant, in 
a speech which he delivered in Congress in the year 
1829. We extract a brief passage, as well for the 
intrinsic value of the testimony, as for the case which 
is related in elucidation : — 

" So great," says he, M is this temptation in its actual results on society, 



49 

that in a thousand cases it has urged men to the commission of acts 
which brought them to a jail, if not the gallows. He adverted to one 
very affecting instance in illustration of his position. It was the case 
of an aged and highly respectable man of character, till then un- 
blemished, and of such standing as to bring him into an office of great 
trust in a monied institution. In consequence of a defalcation in the 
funds, the gray hairs of this unhappy man were brought down to the 
lowest state of ignominy, by his being tried and convicted for purloin- 
ing the money of the institution. It was found on examining into the 
case, that all this amount of funds had gone into a lottery office. The 
man had been dealing in lottery tickets a long time before, ( in tickets 
authorised by law,) but being unfortunate, he yielded in despair to the 
force of a propensity which sometimes gets the mastery of the 
strongest minds, and which is sure to make an easy conquest over weak 
ones." 

The following instance of wrecked happiness and 
fame, is from the pen of an estimable gentleman, 
whose character is a full guaranty for its correctness 
We merely abridge his narrative by excluding ex- 
traneous circumstances. 

M A young man, of respectable family, was in the employ of an 
extensive mercantile house in this city, (Philadelphia.) For a number 
of years he conducted himself with great propriety and fidelity, mar- 
ried an amiable young woman, with whom he lived happily, and had 
an interesting little family growing up around him. His salary was 
such as to enable him to live comfortably and respectably, with a 
proper attention to frugality. For some time previous to the sad de- 
velopment of his dishonesty, there was an obvious change in his 
countenance and conduct at home. He became irritable, and showed 
some unkindness to his wife and children. One morning he was 
missed from the counting house * * *. He had eloped — and left hi3 
wife and children in a situation even more distressing than that of the 



60 

widow and the fatherless. A note was found addressed to his em- 
plyers, stating that he had been tempted many months before to pur- 
chase a lottery ticket, the possession of which had excited an insatiable 
thirst for buying" more. That he had gone on for a considerable time, 
occasionally elated by obtaining a prize, and at other times almost in 
despair, racked with anxiety and suspense, and tortured with the fear 
of the consequences which must result from the iniquitous course he 
was pursuing. But the passion for this dreadful species of gambling 
had completely infatuated him — he exhausted his own funds in the 
purchase of tickets, and reached forth his hands to embrace the 
money of his employers. The compunctions which he first felt for so 
disgraceful an act, were soon drowned in the vain and false hope of 
retrieving his ruined fortunes. Again and again did he appropriate 
their money to gratify his unholy appetite for lottery tickets, contriv* 
ing by false entries to conceal the robbery — until at length the sum 
became so great that it could no longer be kept a secret. Unable to 
face the degradation and reproach which must ensue, he took the 
desperate resolution of abandoning a faithful and affectionate wife and 
his helpless children, and absconded, leaving them destitute of almost 
every comfort. The sum of which he had defrauded his employers 
amounted to thousands of dollars." 

The cases which follow are derived from unexcep- 
tionable sources, and are believed to be substantially- 
true. 

The case of C gis well know by many persons 

in this city. He was teller in the Mechanics' Bank, 
sustained an unexceptionable character, and had an 
interesting family around him, to which he was affec- 
tionately attached. His income was sufficient for his 
comfortable support, but attracted by the splendid 
prizes in a lottery scheme, in which the price of a ticket 



51 

was fifty dollars, he embarked, and purchased to 
very large amounts. It is calculated that he lost 
about ten thousand dollars by his lottery adventures. 
Necessity induced fraud, and he lost his situation in 
the bank ; he became poor in purse and despicable in 
principle ; and he died in a miserable condition — an 
object of disgrace and scorn. 

A young . man of the utmost respectability was 
gradually drawn into gambling in the lottery. He 
purchased to such an extent beyond his means, that 
for the purpose of paying the lottery broker, he was 
obliged to have recourse to overdrawing the bank. 
This he did to the amonnt of five thousand dollars. 

A married woman of respectable character com- 
menced gambling in the lottery. She lost a large 
sum, which she had secretly abstracted from the desk 
of her husband — the result of his hard earnings. Be- 
coming alarmed and unhappy from the apprehension 
that he would miss the money, she submitted to pros- 
titution to enable her to replace it. The facts were 
subsequently developed, and the family, in conse- 
quence, " were ruined and broken up." 

A young man, a clerk in a wholesale store, was 
tempted to try his fortune in the purchase of tickets. 
To carry on his purchases he was obliged to borrow 
money'upon the credit of his employer. The fraud was 
finally detected, and an investigation which ensued re- 
sulted in finding him a defaulter to the amount of eigh- 



52 

teen hundred dollars. He was, besides, indebted about 
one thousand dollars to the lottery brokers. 

There is another instance of a clerk in one of our 
most respectable counting houses, who from his losses 
in the lottery, was induced to embezzle money entrust- 
ed to him for deposit in bank, alleging that the amount 
Was less than represented. The frequent recurrence 
of the trick led to his detection. The total prostra- 
tion of his character and ruin of his prospects, were 
the consequence. 

" A young man, clerk in a highly respectable store in Market street, 
with a salary rather exceeding his expenses, was in the habit of spend- 
ing the excess in the purchase of lottery tickets ; the brokers became 
acquainted with him, and commenced taking tickets to him at his resi- 
dence; after some time he purchased by the package, leaving the 
tickets with the brokers, they to pay themselves out of the prizes, and 
return him the overplus — the costs generally exceeding the amount of 
the prizes. He gave his notes for the difference. At one time being 
pressed for money, he borrowed money in the name of his employers, 
expecting to refund it from the profits of a lottery to draw in a day or 
two ; he was unsuccessful— his employer was called on for the money 
borrowed — discovered the transaction and dismissed him from his em- 
ployment — he was sued by one of the brokers, and took the benefit, 
indebted to lottery brokers about $3000," 

" About four years ago, a young man entered into the employ of a 
respectable cabinetmaker in this city, as a journeyman — in which situa- 
tion he continued about two years, conducting himself while under the 
notice of his employer with great propriety. His industry and appli- 
cation to business were such that his weekly earnings were generally 
greater than those of any person hired in the establishment The ex- 
emplary manner in which he conducted gained him the esteem and 



53 

confidence of his employer, who frequently entrusted large sums of 
money to his care — and his weekly bills for work were made out with 
so much accuracy and fidelity that they seldom needed any correction. 
Thus he continued for a considerable length of time, giving entire 
satisfaction both in the performance of his work, and also in the sobrie- 
ty and steadiness of his deportment. At length it was observed that 
his dress became shabby and neglected, and he was mostly very bare of 
money — so that it was a subject of surprise and wonder what he could 
do with his money. One article of apparel 'after another disappeared, 
until he was left almost without clothing, and eventually he sold his 
last hat for a dollar. Suspicions had, before this time, been excited 
that he had fallen into some evil habits, and it was found that the pro- 
ceeds of his hat were expended in the purchase of a lottery ticket ! 
Here, the sad mystery of his poverty was at once unveiled : his earn- 
ings had been squandered in this worst species of gambling. Again 
and again he lost, and still seduced by the vain hope of retrieving 
his ruined circumstances, in the desperation which such a course usual- 
ly leads to, he determined to make one more attempt — to "try his' 
luck" once more, and, in order to do so, he sold the only hat he had to 
wear. But, as is usual with all lottery gamblers, he lost again ; and 
dreadful to relate, in the extremity to which this wicked system gene- 
rally brings its deluded victims, he was tempted to commit forgery* 
The principle of honesty and sense of shame, already weakened by the 
debasing practice of dealing in lottery tickets, proved too feeble to 
withstand the temptation, and he forged a cheek for two hundred and 
fifty dollars ! Detection soon followed the corhmisson of this dishonest 
act — he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to solitary confinement in 
the penitentiary — where he now deplores his first yielding to the pur- 
chase of a lottery ticket, which has blasted his hopes and prospects for 
life, and stamped a character, once fair and honourable, with infamy 
and disgrace." 

" A man of about sixty years of age, of good appearance, was con- 
ricted at Philadelphia of attempting ta rob a fellow lodger. In answer 



54 

to questions put to him by the mayor, he stated that he was reduced to 
poverty by gaming in lotteries ; that he had spent within the last forty 
years $23,000, or more than $500 a year, and that he had never drawn 
a prize of any importance." 

" A clergyman, who was preaching for a small church and congre- 
gation at the south, was sent by his people to New York and New Eng- 
land to collect funds by subscription to build them a place of worship. 
At New York he collected $600. Finding this a tardy way of accu- 
mulating money, he thought a prize in the lottery would be expedient. 
He therefore expended his $600 in tickets, and waited impatiently for 
the day of drawing. ■ The day arrived, but he drew no prizes of any 
amount. He then applied to a friend for advice, who, with a few other 
benevolent individuals compassionating his situation, made up his loss 
— and he sent the money to his people. He afterwards collected $300, 
and again repaired to the lottery office. He failed of drawing a prize, 
and was a second time destitute of funds. He was, however the owner 
of some property, which he pledged for $200 ; and being fortunate in 
drawing a prize of $100 — he sent the amount to his people. He then 
came to New England. Here he collected $400, and then returned to 
New York, and again this deluded man expended his money for tickets, 
but drew no prizes. After this third attempt, he could obtain no relief 
or sympathy from any one, and in consequence lost his character, aban- 
doned his profession, and during the month of October, 1830, was in 
this city seeking some menial employment.— From folly, this individu- 
al passed on to crime, and from one grade of crime to another, till he 
was guilty of the grossest act that can stigmatize the character of man 
and is now safely lodged in the state prison." 

" A young man, secretary of an insurance office, a few years ago, 
drew a prize of eight or ten thousand dollars. He continued to pur- 
chase tickets until he expended the whole sum. He then forged certifi- 
cates of stock, sold them, and absconded with a female of abandoned 
character." 

w An account was made out by a young man of this city, which ex- 
hibits a melancholy picture of juvenile delinquency, induced by the 



55 

temptations held out by the false promises of the lottery. The ao 
count consists of various articles, comprising gloves, handkerchiefs, sus- 
penders, &c, which the young man had stolen from his employer, a 
dry goods dealer, to the amount of $104.53, and which he disposed of 
at -prices much below their real value, to several lottery ticket dealers, 
whose names he specifies in the account. He says he was led to pur- 
loin the articles from his master in the hope of gaining money in the 
lottery, and with the intention of then refunding the amount he had 
stolen. Annexed to the account is the following certificate, signed by 
the young man, and witnessed by a neighbour of his employer. 

" Boston, Uth November, 1832. 

" I stole all the above g )ods from store, No. — Washington 

street, Boston, at different times, from 1st April, 1832, to 12th No- 
vember, 1832. I do hereby acknowledge that I did this wicked act, 
and sold them to the persons above described. ,, 

(Signed) *#•** **#■* 

Attest t^^^^ %"%%% 

The following is extracted from the Boston Atlas, 
for November 23d, 1832. 

A young man about nineteen yoars of age entered a lottery office in 
exchange street yesterday morning, and bought a part of a lottery ticket, 
which he paid for with a pair of new gloves, and a black silk handkerchief. 
A person who kept his office in a part of the same room, noticed the 
circumstance, and after the young man retired, he advanced and in- 
quired of the vender at what price he had taken those articles. The 
vender answered that he had allowed forty cents for the gloves and 
sixty for the handkerchief. Being a judge of the value of the articles^ 
and knowing their estimated value could not be less than three dollarp, 
he took them from the lottery vender and proceeded into Washington 
street, with a determination to find the young man, and ascertain 
whether his suspicion that they had been stolen was well founded. 
After showing them at several stores, they were recognised, and the 

E 



56 

young man identified. When charged with having fraudulently ob- 
tained the property, the young man made a full confession, and stated 
that he had been in the habit of depredating upon his employer's pro- 
perty for some time, in order to raise money to buy lottery tickets. 
What has been done with the delinquent we have not been informed. 
This is another glaring and startling instance of the mischievous conse- 
quences resulting from lotteries. Here is a young man, probably 
ruined for life — whose character was unblemished — who was tempted 
to a course of vice and crime merely to buy a lottery ticket — to make 
his fortune ! Let young men take warning from his example." 

The following extract of a letter with the narrative 
accompanying it, which we have taken the liberty to 
abridge, is given without comment. It is from a source 
entitled to credit. 

" The littie but painful narrative which accompanies this, is a faith- 
ful picture of woe and misery, witnessed for the most part by myself ; 
and it is with the consent of the parents of the unhappy subject of it 
that I now give it you for publication, hoping it may be the means of 
saving many from the fatal gulf." 

"At the age of 15, W. G. was placed in a highly repectable mercan- 
tile establishment in this city. On the expiration of the first year of his 
probation his employer agreed to give him, on account of his attention and 
regard to his interest, a small salary of seventy-five dollars per annum. For 
his third year he had received one hundred and fifty dollars per annum, 
as a proof of the estimation in which he was held by his master. He 
was the joy of his parents, and was esteemed by all who knew him for 
his amiability and intelligence. But alas ! before his nineteenth year 
• a black porter, who was engaged about the store, had unfortunately 
drawn a small prize — and the glowing colours in which he painted lot- 
teries induced William to become a buyer. He did so, he said, with 
a resolution that he would only try once — and that as it was his first, 
it should likewise be his last attempt. The sequel will prove the 
futility of vows when once there has been a venture of this kind, Hia 



57 

first ticket, which was a quarter in a Delaware lottery, and cost him 
one doller, fatally came up a prize, as the vender termed it, and realized 
eighty-seven and a half cents — to which he was induced to add enough 
to purchase two halves in a New York scheme. He soon became a 
regular purchaser, his weekly earnings being devoted to his gambling 
speculations. For some time his success was doubtful, and he felt no 
need cf drawing from other sources; but soon increased excitement 
called for fresh and larger supplies. His little fund, which in earlier 
years he had prided himself in saving, was now made subservient to his 
gaming and vicious propensities. It was, in a little while, completely 
swallowed up. — At this early season of his career his parents saw, with 
some degree of concern, that his habits had undergone a change. He 
dressed more gaily, was out more at night, and treated them with an unex- 
pected and unusual reserve, though he still preserved so much of his for- 
mer self as not to excite a suspicion of what the real, the mournful 
cause was, and they attributed his alteration to what is apt to take 
place when youth is verging into manhood. He was now in the re* 
ceipt of three hundred dollars per annum, but his expenses were double 
his means. Sometimes, holding tickets which the morrow's drawing 
was to decide, he would madly plunge into revelry in the expectation 
that good fortune would repair his losses. The morning however never 
failed to see him the victim of hopes prostrated and prospects blighted. 
His salary being totally insufficient for the life he led, and the lotteries 
having completely taken possession of his soul, in a moment, an un- 
happy moment of excitement, he appropriate^ the money of his em- 
ployer. The confidential situation he held enabled him, for a long 
period, to avoid detection ; and he even resorted to the plan of pawn- 
ing goods to raise money, with which to encourage his gambling in- 
clinations. But his race was at length run. A large bundle of blank 
lottery tickets which was found, led to his detection, and plunged his 
parents,, whose only child he was, his friends and all who loved him, 
into insuportable grief. He absconded — but at the expiration of many 
weeks, and after advertisements had been placed in various newspapers 



. 58 

by his nearly heart-broken parents, informing hirn that his delin- 
quencies had been settled, he returned, and remained in the privacy of 
his father's house several months. But the spoiler had entered, the fair 
promise of his youth was destroyed, and neither his mother's tears nor 
his father's prayers could detain him from the paths of infamy and vice 
which had now become familiar to him. He went on from bad to 
worse, enlisted, deserted, and is now, or was, in the Havanna, whither 
he went from New Orleans on board a vessel of very suspicious charac- 
ter. — Here is a promising* youth being entirely ruined by lotteries 
alone." 

In most cases of delinquency in the late Bank of 
the United States, whether arising in the chief insti- 
tution or its branches, the unlawful fruits have been 
ascertained to be squandered in lottery offices. So 
far too as any knowledge has transpired respecting 
the delinquencies in our local banks, the same re- 
mark will apply. The funds are often traced to these 
receptacles of ruined virtue, shipwrecked fortunes, 
and blighted hopes ! A few examples will suffice. 

The following jaarrative was kindly communicated 
by a gentleman, who is officially conneqted with the 
institution to which it refers. The principal facts — 
those of the abstraction and its origin — are matters 
of notoriety in this community. We alter only to 
abridge. 

" The evils of lottery gambling" were never, perhaps, more strongly 
examplified, than in the case of that infatuated man, Clew, the porter 
of the Bank of the United States. This individual occupied, in the 
bank a very cofidential station, and although many small sums of 
money were occasionally missed, under circumstances very trying to 
the officers, and particularly to the tellers, yet no suspicion had 



59 

attached to Clew, so exemplary had been his general conduct. One 
day, the officers of the bank in settling their daily morning balances 
with the city banks, missed two notes of a thousand dollars each. * * * 
In a few hours both the missing notes were presented by two lottery 
brokers, who upon being asked from whom they had been received, 
stated from Clew, the porter of the United States Bank. To each of 
these brokers he was then indeb!ed for lottery tickets more than a 
thousand dollars, and when thus detected there were found in his pos- 
session 426 whole tickets, 462 half tickets, 1,361 quarter tickets, and 
78 eighths of tickets, in various lotteries, making in all two thousand 
three hundred and twenty-seven chances, which, after having been all 
drawn and examined by order of the bank, produced less than twenty 
dollars ! Facts afterwards disclosed satisfied the officers of the bank 
that this man had been for years led away by this worst of all species 
of gambling, because the most seductive and the least odious, and 
had constantly been defrauding the institution that confided in trim, 
of sums of money for the purpose of carrying on his nefarious spe- 
culations. 

" It is scarcely necessary to add, that his villanies met with the 
reward consequent upon them, — trial, conviction, and imprisonment, 
— and that with blasted reputation and ruined character, he yet 
lives, a lasting monument of the miserable effects of this pernicious 
system." 

The following case is likewise well authenticated : 

" The cashier of a bank in , who had* long enjoyed the entire 

confidence of his fellow-citizens, was discovered to be a heavy defaulter. 
He at length confessed that the cause of his ruin was the lottery, in 
which he had largely embarked. He was insolvent to the amount of 
fifty thousand dollars /" 

We give another instance of fraud committed in 
a banking institution. It is derived from a Connecti- 
cut newspaper, and there is no doubt of its truth. 
E 2 



60 

" As various reports are in circulation respecting some recent dis- 
closures of a fraud in the Hartford Bank, we have obtained from an 
officer in the bank, the following" particulars : — Mr. D. Hinsdale, book- 
keeper, has been in the Hartford Bank twenty -nine years ; during the 
last thirteen years, he has defrauded the bank to the amount of 
$31,020 23, overdrawing his account, for moderate sums, from time 
to time, and balancing it at the end of every six months, by falsifying 
his entries ; and by making false footings in his trial balances of the 
same amount, the fraud was not discovered. Property valued at 
$9,653 67 has been conveyed to the bank by Mr. Hinsdale, making 
the loss of the bank $21,366 56. The larger part of the money taken 
from the bank, was, by his own account, expended for lottery tickets. 
Mr. H. was supposed to have been unusually fortunate, we believe, in 
drawing prizes." — The New York Journal of Commerce, on copying 
the above, says, " We happen to know that a broker in this city, some 
years since, paid Mr. Hinsdale a prize of $10,000,"' 



INSOLVENCY 

If no other injury were to follow from the system, 
its invariable consequence perhaps to adventurers, is 
their pecuniary ruin. As this partly results from the 
nature of a scheme, it may be proper here to analyse 
the probability of loss or gain r arising from the rela- 
tive amounts of blanks and prizes. Most of the pre- 
sent schemes proceeding upon the principle of Ter- 
nary Combination, consist of any given number at 
the discretion of the managers. The number is so dis- 



61 

posed by means of combination and transposition, as 
to produce that amount of tickets of which the num- 
ber selected is capable- Perhaps the most usual num- 
ber of the schemes now issued is 66, which will make 
45,760 tickets, each containing three double numbers. 
As schemes of this number are commonly drawn in 
ten ballots, the fate of the anxious ticket-holders can 
be speedily ascertained. 

Let us suppose that in a lottery containing 45,760, 
tickets, there are twenty prizes of $1000, one prize of 
$5000, and one of $20,000,. besides others of inferior 
amount. We decline any consideration of these 
merely because as the principle is the same, they are 
not requisite for the illustration ; and because the 
great majority of adventurers contemplate with keener 
avidity the glittering prize of thousands. Now what 
is the chance of a purchaser for either the prize of the 
one, the Jive, or the twenty thousand dollars? If he 
be the holder of a single ticket, his chance of getting 
the prize of $1000, is by calculation shown to be as 
one to 2080. If he purchase that number of chances 
and actually succeed in drawing the prize, he expends 
at the ordinary retail price of a ticket, the sum of 
$10,400. From this deduct his prize, which, by the 
allowance of fifteen per cent, will dwindle to $850, 
and the result of the speculation will be the positive 
loss of nine thousand five hundred and fifty dollars. 
If he be desirous of drawing the prize of $5000, his 
reason to expect it may be said to be as one to 22,880, 



62 

How remote the prospect of success 1 — But the great 
object of his hopes, is to obtain the capital prize of 
$20,000. His chance of obtaining this, is in the 
proportion of one to the aggregate number of tickets 
in the scheme, that is of one to 45,760. Now if for 
the purpose of indemnity, he purchased all the tickets 
in the lottery, we know that his loss would be im- 
mense. What fatuity to venture in a game in which 
the hazards are so desperate in regard to the adven- 
turer ! But, it may be asked, is there no such thing 
as luck in the world ? May not the holder of three 
tickets draw all of the prizes enumerated? Assuredly, 
it is possible, but what would be the consequence T 
One such instance of good fortune must inevitably be 
followed by the loss, perhaps ruin, of the other hun- 
dreds who may have ventured in the lottery. 

The following transcript from the records of the 
Insolvent Court for the city and county of Philadel- 
phia, is prepared from the petitions themselves, which 
are deliberately sworn or affirmed to by the peti- 
tioners. It may be observed, however, that it cannot 
be supposed to include all who have been driven to 
insolvency from this cause, in the district of Philadel- 
phia, during the period embraced. Many whose los- 
ses in lotteries have been the principal occasion of 
their misfortunes, have suppressed the disclosure of 
them in their petitions, and the fact has only been 
elicited by examinations at the Bar. A large number. 
too, either from the indulgence of creditors, or sue- 



63 

cessful dexterity in eluding the clutches of the law, 
have never been driven into the Insolvent Court. 
The number here exhibited, however, is sufficiently 
great, especiallywhen we reflect upon the domestic 
suffering which poverty always inflicts upon the 
families of the unfortunate. 

List of Insolvent Debtors who have Speculated in Lottery Tickets 
in 1830-L-2-3. 



J. A. 


Petition for March Term, 1830 


No. 7, 


Actual loss $700 


J. C. B. 


tt (t 


tf 


tt 


u 


" 15, 


Amount not known. 


W.P. 


u tt 


ft 


tt 


___ u 


'< 126, 


tt tt- it 


E.L. 


tt If 


tf 


tt 


tt 


" 127, 


About 450 


L.L. 


ft ft 


tf 


it 


tt 


" .128, 


About 450 


G.A. 


tt ft 


June 


tt 


tt 


" 11, 


About 1600 


J. D. 


ft tt 


it 


tt 


tt 


" 75, 


About 100 


J.B.D. 


ft tt. 


tt 


tt 


tt 


" 77, 


Nearly 1400 


J.K. 


tt A 


tt 


tt 


tt 


" 168, 


550 


J. R., Jr 


ft tt 


tt 


tt 


tt 


" 252, 


1420 75 


P. S. W. 


tt tt 


tt 


tt 


it 


■ 319, 


About 4000 


C.P.Y. 


ft tt 


it- 


tt 


it 


. " 329, 


1263 


A.S. 


ft tt 


Sept. 


tt 


tt 


" 218, 


350 


T.W. 


ft tt 


tt 


tt 


tt 


" 263, 


About 400 


D.B. 


ft ft 


Dec. 


tt 


tt 


" 7 y 


More than 2500 


C.L.C. 


tt ft 


tt 


tt 


tt 


« 44, 


Nearly 400 


G.M'L. 
J.B. 


tf u 

tt ft 


tt 
March 


u 
ft 


1831, 


" 130, 

" 27, 


Heavy and repeated 

losses 

About 100 


J. S. F. 


tt tt 


tt 


tt 


tt 


« 73, 


About 2000 


G.W. 


tt tt 


tt 


tt 


tt 


44 200, Fine lor selling" foreign 
lottery tickets, 2000 


A.G. 


ft tt 


tt 


tt 


tt 


" 88, 


Amount not known 



64 



T\T.C. " « 


1 June " 


« 


" 52, 


About 75 


A.F.K.&Co. l 


( 11 u 


u 


" 114, 


At least 5000 


A. N. 


t u u 


ic 


" 152, 


200 


A.G.R. « 


t it U 


u 


" 171, 


About 500 


N. S. 


I U (I 


u 


" 190,Retui 
debts as 


ns the following 
due to him, viz: 




G. W. for 


lottery 


tickets, 


$4500 00 




* , 


do, 


do. 


2700 00 




H. W. 


do. 


do. 


240 00 




J. F. 


do. 


do. 


250 00 




G.A. 


do. 


do. 


140 00 




J. L. H. 


do. 


do. 


250 00 




L.T. 


do. 


do. 


21 00 




J. H. 


do. 


do. 


7 00 




G.K.L. 


do. 


do. 


13 40 




J.F. 


do. 


do. 


48 79 




J.N. 


do. 


do. 


21 00 




J.T. 


do. 


do. 


. 11 00 




S.B. 


do. 


do. 


10 00 




W. B. H. 


do. 


do. and cash lent, $1100 00 




E.B. 


do. 


(Jo. 


100 00 




G. R. L. 


do. 


do. 


22 00 




A.C. 


do. 


do. 


100 00 



The whole amount due him, is $9534 19 
The following lottery brokers are creditors : 

Yates & M'Intyre, of Philadelphia, $7000 00 
Robertson & Little, 900 00 

Yates & M'Intyre, of New York, 800 00 



Due his creditors, $18234 00 8700 00 



$18234 19 



list. 



Several of the debtors have been insolvent, who are returned in the 



* This debt has since been satisfied. 



65 

A. J. C. Petition for Sept. Term, 1831, No. 52, About $150 

J. E. " " " " " " 87, Amount not known 

W.F. " " ■ " « "100, At least 600 

W. H. " " " " " " 131, says that he lost two 

or three hudred dollars 
E.F.W. « " Dec. " " «■ 180, By tickets on hand, 

unsold, about $2000 
And the petitioner as one of the firm of E. F. W. & T. P. is indebted 
• as follows : 

Yates & M'Intyre, note and book account, $1500 
Robertson & Little, do. do. do. 1500 

A.M.Nutt, do. do. do. 40 

$3040 



B. W.B. Petition for March Term, 1832, No. 9, owes 

Yates & M'Intyre, $25000 00 
Paine & Burgess, 5000 00 



In all, $30,000 00 
J. H. " " " " " « 80, Amount not known 

R.M.S. " " " M " " 185, $5000 

J.G. VV. " « « " » « 203, Has lost considerable 

sums in tickets drawn blanks 
E.B. " « June " " " 5, $98 00 

J.H.B. « ■ " " « « 25, 4 62| 

J.P.C. " " M " " " 47, Amount not known 
A.G.D. " " " •« « " 57, " " M 
J.H. M " Sept. M " " " " ° 

H.T.R. « " " "' " « 236, The chief, and in fact, 
only cause of this present embarrassment, 
is owing to his having dealt to a very con- 
siderable amount in lottery tickets, and 
thereby sustaining great losses. 



66 

J. H. Petition for Dec. Term, 1832, No. 97, $90 50 

J.H. " " " " " " 102, 36 00 

W.C. " " " " u " 37, Has lost by having 

lottery tickets on hand, about $3000 00 

He owes Yates & M'Intyre, 503 43 

Robertson &, Little, 1088 53 

J. J. Robinson, 2 00 

J.H. 20 00 



In all, $4613 96 



J. C. Petition for March Term, 1833, No. 40, About $400 

E, L. C. " " June " " " 65, Upwards of $3300 
He owes Yates & M'Intyre, $1460 
Robertson & Little, 100 



$1560 $1560 00 



F.F. Petition for June Term, 1833, No. 109, $71 55 

J.M.S.B. u " March" " " 10, Returns Yates and 

M'Intyre as creditors, amount unknown 

P. S. C. " " " " " > " 45, lost considerably in 

lottery tickets, and returns the following lottery 

brokers as creditors : 

Robertson & Little, about $100 
Yates & M'Intire, " 100 
A. M. Nutt, " 30 

$230 $230 
M. M. Petition for June Term, 1833, No. 194. 

The petitioner states that he has lost a great deal of 
money by adventuring in lotteries, having, from the cir- 
cumstances of drawing several years ago, about $1400, 
been induced to adventure again until he had sunk more 
money than he could spare, he was therefore led to em- 
bark further in the practice, under the hope of repairing 



67 

his losses by some lucky train of fortune, a hope that 

proved delusive, and is one of the principal causes of his 

insolvency, &c. 

A- P. Petition for March Term, 1823, No. 200, About $50 

A.G.R. " " June « " " 247, " 506 

U. W. " u « « u « 307, He drew in one 

of the lotteries about $6,250, which enabled him to 

discharge his old debts, and set him afloat again in 

business. Encouraged by his luck, he entered largely 

into lottery speculations, whereby he lost great sums of 

money, of which he has no account. 

H. W. Petition for Sept. Term, 1833, No. 390, About $130 

P. W, " " * " " " 387, Amount not known 

The following statement is derived from a petition 
for the benefit of the insolvent laws. The narrative 
is signed as usual by the applicant, and given under 
the solemnity of an oath. 

" The petitioner became of age on the 24th of December, 1828, and 
immediately commenced speculations in lottery tickets that he received 
from different sources other than from lotteries, and at different times, 
about $975; the greater part of which he either laid out for tickets, 
or paid on account of tickets which he had before purchased : That he 
drew, at various times, prizes to the amount of $4,000, which he in- 
vested as soon as received, in other tickets, or paid for, on account of 
those which he had purchased before : That he has sunk in these 
speculations, in the short period of six months, all that he had, and 
has left him upwards of 3300 dollars in debt beyond his means 
to pay." 

To these a few cases of failure in business may be 
subjoined, which rest upon individual authority of the 
best kind, for their veracity. 



68 

« \V , of , failed in the autumn of 1832. He had been 

engaged in what appeared to be a profitable retail dry goods business. 
The cause of his defalcation was discovered to be the lottery, in which 
he had lost five thousand dollars.' 11 

" A respectable mechanic, a freeholder, and supposed to be in good 
circumstances, who was in the habit of purchasing occasionally a 
ticket, drew a prize, and afterwards increased his purchases. He was 
beset by the brokers at every drawing of a lottery to take the tickets 
remaining on hand — sometimes the loss would not be great, but gene- 
rally, there was almost a total loss. On some occasions he was stopped 
by brokers on Sundays when about going to church with his family — 
alleging that news of a drawing would be in by the mail of that day. 
He continued his speculations about two years, and then stopped, with 
a loss of between fifteen and twenty thousand dollars." 

u W , a dentist, lost twenty thousand dollars by a long 

course of gambling in the lottery in connexion with C . Both 

were completely ruined." 

" To . 

Sir — In compliance with your request to furnish you with any 
information I might possess of the injurious effects of lotteries, I beg 
leave to state, that I was intimately acquainted for many years with 

Mr. ; that he was an excellent mechanic, well acquainted with 

his business, which appeared to be prosperous, and was pretty ex- 
tensive. 

" He died in March, 1829, and I was called upon to assist at the 
examination of his papers, and became one of his administrators. 
We found a large number of lottery tickets, and his estate was in- 
solvent; those creditors who were not secured by judgments or 
mortgages got nothing. I have no hesitation in saying, that I think 
the lotteries were the principal cause of his ruin. He left a family 



69 

entirely unprovided for, and his losses in lottery tickets must have been 
very great, and I cannot in any other way account for the great defi- 
ciency of his estate. 

" I remain, very respectfully, yours, 

» J. R." 

** A gentleman, worth some money, commenced the lottery business 
in the city of Philadelphia, about two years since, and did a very 
large business. He risked a great many tickets himself, and stopped 
with the loss of all he commenced with, besides being much indebted 
to the managers. A friend of this gentleman called on the managers 
to see what arrangement could be made about the balance due. The 
managers very readily informed him, that they should not trouble 
Mr. for what he owed them, as ■ he had not only ruined him- 
self, but had broken more men than any other vender in so short 
a time.' " 



THE DISASTROUS EFFECTS OF DRAWING 
PRIZES. 

It is a peculiar feature of lotteries, that suc- 
cess and miscarriage alike allure their votary to 
ruin. Where the victim of this false and seductive 
game is unsuccessful, as must happen from necessity 
in the proportion of almost ninety-nine cases to a 
hundred, he is incited by the temptations of desire 
to new trials of his fortune ; each shred and fragment 
of his dwindling property is put under contribution, 
and recklessly staked, till the last it exhausted. His 



70 

mind debased by evil companionship and idle habits, 
and enervated by illusive calculations and inordinate 
hopes, is robbed of its native virtues and its native 
strength. He sinks a worthless, abject, and degraded 
wretch into voluntary pauperism, or is driven to the 
commission of vices and crimes which render him 
the disgrace of his friends and the bane of his coun- 
try. When good fortune, so called, is the fate of 
the adventurer, it is, perhaps, invariably followed by 
the ruin of his virtue and his peace. It raises him to 
a sudden pinnacle which renders him dizzy ; he looks 
with contempt upon the humbleness of useful labours 
below. His brief career, marked by wasteful extra- 
vagance and licentious folly, ends in bankruptcy. 
From the dreams which he had indulged, and the 
habits he has fostered, he is rendered completely the 
sport, as he has been the victim of chance ; he is 
ready to go whithersoever the tide of accident or 
passion may carry him. We do not draw from 
fancy an overcharged and visionary picture ; the 
reality far transcends the feebleness of such a por- 
traiture. 

An editor of a newspaper relates the following cir- 
cumstance, which is a striking exemplification of the 
mutability of riches obtained by lotteries ; 

" A man," says he, " who, a few years ago, was blessed with about 
$20,000 lottery money, yesterday applied to us for ninepence to pay 
for a night's lodging." 



71 

We cannot resist the temptation to quote the fol- 
lowing account, given by a lottery vender in New 
York, as to the destination of prizes which were sold 
by him in a certain lottery drawn during the autumn 
of 1831 ; and of his own impoverishment by purchas- 
ing in the lottery : 

" The highest prize sold by me in Class 30, was $50 
« « «* « « "31 " 40 



32, 


" 12 


11, 


" 50 


33, 


" 300 


34, 


" 50 


35, 


" 100 



" The first prize, of $50, was sold to a black man. I never saw 
him after. 

" The second, of $40, was sold to a black man. He spent it all in 
tickets, and got in my debt $2 50, which he has not paid. 

" The third, $12, was sold to a neighbour of mine. He took the 
amount in tickets, and lost the whole. He never purchased of me 
after that. 

" The fourth, of $300, was sold to a journeyman baker. He 
drew a $1,000 prize afterwards; he spent the whole $300 prize with 
me, and, as I understand, he left his employment and the city much 
in debt. 

" The fifth, of $50, was sold to a woman who spent the whole for 
tickets, and more too, in less than a week. 

" The sixth, and last, was sold to a young gentleman of my ac- 
quaintance. He bought more tickets than the prizes came to. He 
drew afterwards $1,000 ; I presume, in fact he told me, he had spent 
every cent of it in lottery tickets. I am thus particular, and I am 
enabled to be so, from having kept a book in which all my tickets 
F 2 



72 

were registered; and I have invariably taken the names of purchasers, 
or a description of their persons. The lottery brokers generally do so ; 
they are a keen set of fellows, and pretty sure not to let a person who 
may be so unfortunate as to draw a high prize, escape their clutches. 
It may not be amiss to state my own experience. I have, within 
seven years, drawn the whole of - - $10,000 

Half of $24,000 - - - - 12,000 

Half of 5,000 ..... 2,500 

and minor prizes of $1,000 and downwards, to an immense amount. 
I have drawn at least twenty prizes of $1,000 each, and am now 
indebted for lottery tickets over $7,000, without the means of paying 
a mill ; and I believe my luck has been better than that of any other 
man in America. 1 have had tickets forced upon me by the venders 
to the amount of $5,000 in a single lottery. As long as there was 
any chance of redeeming myself from insolvency, I was willing to 
take the risk, and so were they, believing in my ability to pay them." 

A person of the name of J , who was engaged 

in a respectable grocery business, drew several prizes 
amounting to $40,000. He quitted business, and was 
persuaded to adopt an expensive style of living. He 
very soon expended the whole sum, because intem- 
perate, and died insolvent and broken hearted. 

A man who resided in , drew a prize of 

$30,000 among other smaller ones. He continued 
his adventures, and eventually failed, $50,000 in 
debt! 

A man who was pursuing a small but successful 
business, purchased some lottery tickets, and drew 
$1,000, Again he drew $10,000, and on another 



73 

occasion $5,000. The public heard of all these 
prizes, but not of the expenditure in tickets neces- 
sary to secure them. He neglected his business, and 
finally abandoned it for that of the lottery. His 
habits became dissipated, and he is now reduced to 
penury. 

Mr. , whose good fortune in the lottery had 

been extensively bruited as wonderful, failed a few 
years ago. He had once drawn a prize of $40,000, 
and other prizes of inferior amount. The account 
which he had kept showed an aggregate of $80,000, 
drawn at different periods, but his expenditure for 
tickets amounted to the sum of $120,000 ! He was 
insolvent $70,000 I 

" A prize of $15,000 was drawn by four young men. One was a 
gold and silver smith, at the time, honest and industrious, — he has 
since drawn two or three large prizes, and is now a drunken vaga- 
bond. Another was a grocer, who has since failed, and says, his last 
advice to his children will be, " Never buy a lottery ticket" 

The other two were also grocers, remarkable for their industry and 
economy, — but both have since died in poverty and drunkenness." 

" A respectable mechanic of , about the year 1823, drew a 

prize of $10,000. Previously he was estimated to be worth $6,000. 
Soon after drawing the prize he purchased a large estate in the eity 
for $50,000, designing to sell it in house lots, and expecting to realize 
large profits therefrom. He also purchased, about the same time, a 
country seat in the vicinity of the city, for which, with outfits, he paid 
$6,000. His losses in consequence of these speculations were at least 



74 

$20,000. In 1832, he had become relieved of all embarrassments, 
and was enabled to pay cash for articles used in the prosecution of his 
business. About this time he drew two prizes, one of $5,000 and the 
other of $2,000. Soon after which he neglected to fulfil his pecuniary 
engagements with the same promptitude as before. In the winter of 
1832-3, he failed, and absented himself from the city, leaving his cre- 
ditors without their dues. At the time he drew the $10,000, three 
other persons were concerned with him equally, in a prize of $40,000 
one of whom was worth, previously, from $5,000 to $10,000, and 
within six months from the drawing of the prize, he failed." 

" A young man of , (a cooper,) bought a few tickets in the 

lottery, and drew $10,000, for which he obtained $8,300. He pur- 
chased a house, and as he knew lottery money was 4 hard to hold,' 
had the deed made in his wife's name. He continued to purchase 
tickets, soon contracted habits of intemperance, from a kind husband 
he became abusive, spent all his money, and his wife, to prevent his 
arrest, mortgaged the house, but was soon obliged to sell it, to pro- 
cure means to keep him out of prison. He is now a confirmed drunk- 
ard, and his family are in destitute circumstances." 

" A young man, a son of a wealthy merchant, was one of four who 
drew $10,000. This success caused him to purchase many tickets. 
He became involved ; his naturally amiable disposition, from repeated 
disappointment, was supplanted by excitability and chagrin; he be- 
came intemperate and addicted to gaming in various ways, and soon 
after left the country, deeply in debt. He went to the West Indies, 
and there continued his habits of gaming and dissipation, and was 
finally obliged to leave in the night, for fear of assassination. He 
then came back to the United States, and immediately shipped as a 
common sailor round Cape Horn. — The other three persons who 
shared the $10,000 with him, soon after failed, as was supposed, from 
venturing largely in lotteries." 



15 

u Another young man, (a clerk,) drew $3,000. He commenced 
business, but continued to purchase tickets until he lost all the pro- 
perty he possessed, (being more than he drew in the lottery,) and 
finally failed. He is now very poor, and obliged to labour hard for 
a subsistence. But sad experience had not taught him the folly of 
relying upon chance ; the deceitful promises of the lottery still have 
their influence over his visionary and credulous mind, and he declares 
he would spend still more for tickets if he could afford it.' 

" Another person, also of* - ■ , who kept a store, and devoted his 
whole time to his business, and scarcely left his store during the week, 
unfortunately drew a prize of $5,000. He still continued to pay strict 
attention to his business, and was no less temperate in his habits. But 
his success in the lottery proved his ruin. From that time he expended 
hundreds of dollers in each lottery that was presented to him, until he 
had exhaustod all he had made by lotteries, all he had accumulated by 
a long course of successful industry, and all he could command by his 
credit. The result was certain. He failed ; and, although he continued 
his habit of industry, became very poor. He probably sunk $12,000 
or $15,000 in this most ruinous of all systems of gambling, over and 
above the prize money he received." 

m An extensive dealer in malt liquors drew, four or five years ago, 
a prize of $10,000. He was previously supposed to be worth from 
fifteen to twenty thousand dollars, and was highly esteemed for his 
industry and perseverance in business. He rarely purchased a ticket 
previously to his drawing the prize — afterwards his adventures became 
very extensive, and in about a year he failed, and was able to pay only 
his preferred creditors." 

" A young man, who formerly was employed as a clerk in the Post 
Office at , drew a prize of $8,000. Dissipated habits, and gam- 
ing of various kinds, caused his dismission by the Post-Master, and 
subsequently his ruin." 



76 

14 A person residing in , drew $25,000. He was a watch- 
maker—which business he immediately closed, and had deposited in 
the bank at the same time over $19,000 in money. His first step 
was to build a house at the expense of $10,000. He then opened a 
store with an extensive assortment of goods, and purchased a brig for 
whaling. In three years he failed, and was deficient $18,000 — having 
squandered in this short period the sum of $37,000." 

The Philadelphia Saturday Bulletin for May 28, 
1830, relates the following melancholy occurrence : 

" We witnessed a strange sight on Thursday evening, within a few 
doors of our office ; a young man had drawn a large prize in one of 
the lotteries, and had just received the proceeds, amounting to more 
than $8,000. It drove him crazy on the spot. No sooner had he 
received the money than his senses forsook him, and being an utter 
stranger in the city, he roamed throngh the streets like a madman, 
until going into a jeweller's shop near Fourth Street, he purchased a 
dagger, for which he offered $100 — a crowd had followed him to the 
shop door, attracted by the singular spectacle, and then he came out 
swearing he would kill the first man he met — a threat which his dis- 
torted senses might certainly have compelled him to execute." 

" Four or five years ago a gentleman, then a commission merchant 

in P , drew the whole of a $50,000 prize in one of the southern 

lotteries. The prize was subject to a deduction of 15 per cent., pay- 
able in 60 days from the time of drawing ; he also made a further dis- 
count of $500 for prompt pay, and actually received $42,000 in cash 
and lottery tickets, the amount of the lattar I never heard. He imme- 
diately purchased a house, barouche, a span of horses, etcetera, and in- 
vested the residue of his funds in ships, brigs, schooners, wild lands 
and probably more lottery tickets* In less than eighteen months the 



77 

poor man died, and his estate was found insolvent several thousands 
of dollars. 

u Not long after the death of the gentleman before alluded to, there 
was another disturbance among the lottery gamblers. A man, who 
had for years been engaged in ship-chandlery business, and who was 
generally suposed to be 'above board,' was found, upon an investiga- 
tion of his affairs, to be indebted for borrowed money about $1,200, all 
of which he borrowed of his neighbours in sums of from 50 to $300. 
He owed $1,000 for his stock in trade, and two thousand dollars for 
lottery tickets; and to pay these debts of more than $4,000, all he had, 
including his stock in his store and furniture in his house, was only 
about $400. He subsequently acknowledged that he had spent more 
than $5,000 in two years for lottery tickets." 

" A most signal instance of personal ruin occasioned by dealers in 

lotteries, occurred in the short career of , who died several years 

ago. He was a very promissing youth, and, after completing his 
education, commenced the study of the law, for the practice of 
which he soon qualified himself, and appeared at the bar under very 
auspicious circumstance. He soon had a very respectable prac- 
tice, and having about this time married a very fine woman, the 

daughter of a man of high standing and handsome fortune, Mr. 's 

prospects were considered very promising. Had he continued the 
sober, studious, industrious man he then was, he would, no doubt, 
have risen to great respectability, influence,* and independence. He 
was, however, so unfortunate as to draw a prize of one hundred thou- 
sand dollars — immediately after which he launched forth into a style 
of extravagant living, almost unexampled, gave up his business, or 
rather lost it by inattention, and by living freely soon became what 
might be considered intemperate — in eating perhaps as well as drink- 
ing. He commenced entertaining company upon a scale, which, with 
the mode of living he had adopted, soon exhausted his estate and de- 
stroyed his constitution. He died at about the age of thirty years, 
a bankrupt. His ruin may be fairly charged to this most iniquitous 
system of licensed gambling." 



78 

u A young man by the name of , who came from the — , 
taught school in the country with good success, and became highly 
respectable. By dealing in lotteries he unfortunately drew a prize of 
twenty thousand dollars. This completely turned his head. He re- 
moved to , opened a lottery office, and in two years became a 

bankrupt !" 

" There have been instances of utter ruin from indulging in the 
temptation which lotteries hold out, even where they have been some- 
times fortunate. A gentleman drew a prize of twenty-eight thousand 
dollars^ and in ten years sunk all he possessed before, as well as the 
amount above stated. He died a drunkard, and left his family depend- 
ant upon the charity of others." 

" A striking instance occurred in . A man who had for more 

than twenty years been receiving from an office three thousand dollars 
per annum, and had made way with it all in the purchase of tickets, 
drew a prize of ten thousand dollars. He made many judicious plans 
as to the way of investing this sum, as to receive a competence for his 
family, and talked exceedingly well of having learned mnch from ex- 
perience, &c, but he laid out much in tickets, and in less than two 
years all had melted away. * * * The consequence to those who draw 
prizes, are, perhaps, as injurious as to those who draw blanks." 

In reply to the question, what consequences have 
resulted from the lottery in Connecticut? the answer 
was — " in many instances distress and ruin." The 
correspondent continues : 

" I know several instances in which men of respectable standing 
in the community and of fair property, have been induced to deal in 
lottery tickets until they and their families are ruined. But I do not 
feel myself at liberty to enter into particulars." 

The same delicacy must induce the suppression of 
a melancholy case which was confidentially commu- 



79 



nicated to the writer, by a near relative of the ill- 
fated victim residing in that state. 



INTEMPERANCE AND SUICIDE. 

Either intemperance or suicide would seem naturally 
to follow from the course of life which is incident to 
all species of gambling, and especially to that by 
means of the lottery. For what is more likely to be 
resorted to as a cure for the tedium of idleness or the 
agony of successive losses, than the excitement or 
insensibility to be found in the glass ? And when that 
idleness at last terminates in despondency or these 
losses in despair, where can the infatuated and un- 
happy victim find a resting place but in death ? His 
religion and courage have been dissipated with his 
money ; being " afraid to live, he dares to die," and 
his seared conscience feels no compunctious pang at 
the crime of self-destruction. Having lost all his 
chances here, he madly rushes to the certainty of a 
final destiny. But we hasten to give at least an ex- 
ample of each, in addition to the several instances of 
intemperance which have been already related. 

" A Mr. G -, of Franklin county, Massachusetts, drew, about 

ten years since, a prize of $20,000 in a lottery. He was a trader of 
a respectable family, but not possessed of much money. After he 
drew the prize he neglected his business, became dissipated and in- 

G 



80 

temperate in his habits, and within two years past, he has been declared 
by the select-men of the town in which he resided, a vagabond, and * 
guardian has been appointed to take charge of his remaining property 
for the benefit of his wife and family. To avoid the alms-house he 
fled to New York, taking with him two of his children. During the 
last summer his children, that he took with him, were found by one 
of his former acquaintances in the streets of New York, in a deplorable 
state of misery, being nearly starved and almost naked — and were 
taken by him to his own house, where they remained till an opportu- 
nity offered to convey them to their mother and friends in Massa- 
chusetts." 

u A respectable farmer residing in the interior of the state of Massa- 
chusetts, drew several years ago a prize of $10,000. His first ex- 
penditures embraced many improvements upon his farm, and the 
building of a large house. But the tavern soon overcome his attach- 
ments to his family — his pecuniary affairs were neglected — he became 
a bankrupt, a drunkard, and to end his miserable existence, was his 
own murderer" 

u A young man, a native of E , a few years ago, was so unfor- 
tunate as to draw a prize of a $1,000 in a lottery. Previously he had 
established a good character for industry, prudence, and moral con- 
duct — at the time he was a machinest in a large manufacturing esta- 
blishment. His success so infatuated the people of that vicinity, that 
during the six subsequent days, one lottery broker in the village where 
he resided, took $30,000 for tickets. The effect on him personally 
was still worse. On drawing the prize he changed his business, and 
opened a grocery store. With his business he changed his habits — 
and about two years afterwards, died a drunkard, by the side of his 
own rum cask, leaving a wife to deplore his ruin and death. In the 
village where the manufactory was situated, two other young men, 
his associates, have subsequently ruined themselves by the same spe- 
cies of gambling. One of them soon after died of intemperance, and 
the other is now a confirmed drunkard.'* 



81 

The following reference to a remarkable case of 
suicide, is extracted from a newspaper printed in 
New York, February, 1831 : 

" The case of suicide reported in the city of New York, during the 
last week* is one which ought to awaken alarm in the mind of every 
one. It is strange that the individual should have about his lifelest 
corpse the evidence that rum, lottery-gaming, and infidelity, were the 
Irio of ruffians who drove him to this deed of infamy-^this awful crime 
of self-murder. His card of address directed to a grog-shop as hia 
hoarding house — in his pocket were three lottery tickets, portending 
blanks, as the fruits of his gaming — and about his person was found a 
single leaf of 4 Seneca's Morals, 1 in which the crime of self-murder 
finds an apology, and even justification." 

We adopt from the Boston Courier of February, 
1833, the following narrative. The painful event 
referred to excited an unparalleled sensation in Bos- 
ton, where it occurred : 

• The recent self -destruction of Mr. David H. Ackers, in this city, 
demands a more emphatic notice than it has yet received. The feel- 
ings of the community were perhaps never more painfully, more in- 
dignantly excited, than they have been by this afflicting event. 

a Mr. Ackers, the misguided man, whose unhappy fate has been so 
generally deplored, had been, for ten years, the chief clerk in one of 
the first importing houses in the city ; and to the hour of his death, he 
enjoyed the unbounded confidence of his employers." 

" His character for integrity and purity was unsullied. Modesty and 
amiability in his manners, temperate and domestic in his habits, he 
was endeared to all who knew him, as one without a vice. 

u When the distressing tidings were first spread abroad, that he had 
been found dead, not the most distant suspicion was entertained that 
he had ended — that he could have ended his quiet existence by his own 



82 

act. The rumour which momentarily prevailed, that he had been 
robbed and murdered, was received, it is true, with horror, but with 
implicit confidence; no* was it until the fatal evidence of his rashness 
was found in his own hurried hand- writing-, that they who had known, 
and loved, and trusted him so long, were made to feel that he had 
cruelly deceived them ; and that in the distraction of remorse he had 
atoned for one crime by committing another — the darkest crime 
of all. 

14 Ackers was the victim of a fraternity, who, to the disgrace of our 
city, are permitted to carry on their unlawful labours in every street 
and alley, in bold defiance of the penalties they deserve. The out- 
rageous extent to which he was duped will hardly be credited. In the 
short space of between seven or eight months, he embezzled the enor* 
mous sum of $18,000, every cent of which he lost on lottery tickets, 

" I have no desire to excite unmerited ill-will against any member 
of the community ; it is not my wish to draw down undeserved odium 
upon any particular mode, whereby men gain their livelihood ; but a 
traffic which even permits such a monstrous fraud as I have mentioned, 
I shall speak in no measured terms — and I have mistaken the temper of 
my fellow citizens, if they are not prepared to sustain me in saying, 
that it must be broken up. They who follow it are daily and hourly 
violating the law of the land, and must be watched and detected and 
punished. 

" I have been permitted to copy the dying declaration of poor 
Ackers, which was found in his desk afler his death. It was proba- 
bly written a few moments only before he committed the awful act to 
which he was hurried by the goadings of remorse. It is a simple 
picture of human woe. In its untutored language we see to what a 
depth of wretchedness one false step reduced a man upon whose whole 
life before not a blot had rested. 

COPY. 
" I have for the last seven months gone fast down the broad road 
to destruction. 



83 

There was a time, and that too but a few months since, that I was 
happy, because I was free from debt and care. 

w The time I note my downfall, or deviated from the path of recti- 
tude, was about the middle of June last, when I took a share in a 
company, of lottery tickets f whereby I was successful in obtaining a 
share of one half the capital prize ; since which I have gone for myself 
and that too, not on a very small scale, as you can judge from the 
amount now due to J. R. & Co., every dollar of which has been spent 
in that way. 

■ I have lived or dragged out a miserable existence for two or three 
months past. Sleepless nights and a guilty conscience have led me on 
to the fatal act 

u Only the hope of making Messrs. J. R. & Co. good for the defal- 
cation, has postponed it to the present time ; a smaller amount I did 
hope, would be the result, for the worst luck I had the more I 
bought. 

u Since I have reflected on my rashness, I cannot look back and see 
how it is possible I could have conducted in this way. When the 
situation I occupied, and the confidence reposed in me, and the long 
time I have been engaged, and the reward of my poor services by 

, that all should be lost in one moment — but the loss is too much 

for me to bear. 

" Oh that seven or eight months past of my existence could be 
blotted out — but no, I must go — and ere this paper is read, my spirit 
is gone to my Maker, to give an account of my misdeeds here, and 
receive the dreadful sentence for self-destruction and abused confi- 
dence. 

[Two or three lines are here erased.] 

** Relations and friends I have, from w T hom I do not wish to part 
under such circumstances, but necessity 
u Oh, wretch ! lotteries have been thy ruin. 
** I cannot add more." 

G 2 



84 
THE LOTTERY LAWS, 

IN OTHER STATES BESIDES PENNSYLVANIA. 



We subjoin such scanty information as we have been 
able to collect, of the 'lottery system as it prevails in 
the other states, besides Pennsylvania. 

In New York the lottery system has prevailed to 
an alarming extent. During the year 1830 schemes 
were drawn, in the city of New York alone, to the 
overwhelming amount of nine millions two hundred 
and seventy thousand dollars. The year 1833 wit- 
nessed its termination in that great commonwealth, by 
virtue of an Act passed in pursuance of the spirit 
which dictated a salutary provision in her revised Con- 
stitution. That Constitution, in the spirit of enlightened 
and genuine philanthropy, has disabled the legislature 
from ever making the grant of a lottery. The provi- 
sion is in these words : 

Art. 7. Sec. 11. "No lottery shall hereafter be 
authorized in this state ; and the legislature shall pass 
laws to prevent the sale of all lottery tickets within 
this state, except in lotteries already provided for by 
law." 

Through the statute-book of Virginia there are scat- 
tered forty or fifty acts of assembly, authorising lot- 
teries for various objects of a local nature, connected 
for the most part with the cause of improvement. At 
the session of 1832-3 alone, no less than twelve new ones 



63 

were enacted. Of this frightful number, it is consola- 
tory to hope from the diminutive sums mentioned in 
the grants, that only three or four will be rendered in- 
jurious by being carried into execution. An act of 
1825 prohibited the sale of foreign tickets, but as it 
could not be executed, licenses were substituted. 

These licenses discriminate between the selling of 
foreign tickets and of those which are domestic, by 
imposing a fine of $5000 for the former privilege, and 
$60 for the latter. The following list of licenses 
issued from the beginning of last year to the middle of 
July, 1833, may be relied upon as accurate. 

The returns made to the First Auditor's Office, from each county in 

the state of Virginia, show that the following lottery licenses have been 

issued for the year 1832, viz: — 

- $10 00 

45 33 

500 00 

2147 75 

1162 50 

30 00 

$3895 58 



Augusta county, 




1 license at 


Monroe county, 




1 « 


Petersburg, 




1 « * 


Richmond city, 




5 " • 


Norfolk borough, 




3 '• • . 


Rockingham county, 


2 " - 



Returns of lottery licenses, for the present year, are not complete — 
But the following have already been returaed,*(July 15, 1833,) viz:— 
Richmond city, 5 licenses at $500 $2500 

, 3 " 60 180 



$2680 00 

Linchburg, 1 " • - 60 00 

Fredericksburg, 3 " - - * 327 32 



$3067 33 

It is not a little remarkable that the Virginia legis- 
lature at the session of 1832-3, should authorise 
4 twelve new lotteries to be drawn,' while an act to 



86 

suppress them altogether was substantially passed by 
both houses ! The bill for their suppression had re- 
ceived the sanction of the delegates, and was return- 
ed with an unimportant amendment from the senate, 
which, as it was the last day of the session, the for- 
mer had not time to consider. It remains for us to 
hope that it will be revived and concurred in with 
unanimity. 

In Ohio, Vermont, Maine, and Michigan, the lottery 
system is destroyed ; and in Louisiana, where twenty 
grants have been authorised since the year 1810, its 
existence is to terminate on the first day of the coming 
year. 

The Constitutions of Maryland and Tennessee, 
have wisely interfered in the destruction of all power 
on the part of the legislature, to license so pernicious 
a species of gambling. 

New Hampshire passed a law in 1791, for the 
suppression of the evil, the penalty of which was 
altered in 1807, and this again by an act of 1827, 
which is still in operation. This statute makes it penal 
to dispose of any property by means- of a lottery, or 
to sell foreign lottery ticketSr There is no grant in 
existence, but until recently foreign tickets were sold 
in almost every bookseller's shop in the state in open 
defiance of the law. 

A correspondent give the following account of the 
extent to which these illicit sales had been carried : — 
" The sale of tickets issued in other states is prohibit- 
ed by a law passed July 7th, 1827, imposing a penalty 



87 

for selling, keeping for sale, or otherwise disposing of 
tickets, of a sum not exceeding $ 100, nor less than 
$25. The same law contains a section imposing a 
fine for printing or publishing any account of a lottery, 
or any advertisement of tickets, of the same descrip- 
tion. Notwithstanding this law, tickets have been 
sold in this state to a considerable amount every year, 
until the present ; when on account of the great dis- 
gust against the whole lottery system among the 
greater part of the community, their sale has nearly 
if not entirely, ceased. The purchase of tickets in 
this state, in years past, seemed to pervade every class 
and condition of the community — the high and the 
low, the rich and the poor, the merchant and mechanic, 
the lawyer and his client, the physician and his patient, 
the minister of the gospel, (in a few cases,) and the 
members of the church, have all at different times 
been infected with the lottery mania, and not a few 
have been attracted to the fortunate lottery office for 
what they fondly hoped would bring them ease and 
affluence. I would not be understood as saying that 
many of each of the foregoing descriptions of persons 
have been in the habit of purchasing tickets, but per- 
sons of each profession named, have patronized the 
wheel of chance or fortune, and together in the aggre- 
gate constitute a very considerable number." 

In North Carolina the system is virtually abandon- 
ed by the suspension of schemes and the absence of 
lottery offices for the sale of tickets ; although the 
grant for the Neuse River, is said still to be in being. 



88 

In Massachusetts, the clandestine sale of lottery 
tickets which had been extensively carried on in Bos- 
ton, was arrested at the session of the legislature for 
1832-3, with an energy and unanimity of sentiment 
highly gratifying. 

The legislature of New Jersey, for the last twelve 
or fifteen years, has uniformly resisted the most urgent 
applications for, grants of lotteries, but in defiance of 
the penalties annexed to selling foreign tickets, they 
are exposed in every part of the state. We are in- 
formed upon the best authority, that extraordinary 
arts are employed to induce their purchase. News- 
paper publications, personal solicitations and importu- 
nities, handbills thrown in at almost every door, and 
the exposure of artful and gaudy signs to public view, 
are among the means resorted lo. It is to be hoped 
that this violation of their laws will be stopped, both 
from considerations relating to their own citizens, as 
well as to those of Philadelphia. If the practice be 
connived at by the authorities of New Jersey, she 
may expect, now that lotteries in Pennsylvania are ter- 
minated, to be darkened by the flight into Camden 
and the neighbouring towns, of the numerous lottery 
brokers with which Philadelphia was recently swarm- 
ing. Will she consent to receive into her bosom two 
hundred greedy lottery brokers to prey upon the vitals 
of her national prosperity ? Will she consent to render 
inoperative the legislation of Pennsylvania, by pre- 
senting to her citizens an easy opportunity of evading 
the law in going beyond the reach of its penalties ? 



89 

There exists no lottery in Illinois, but owing to the 
absence of statutory prohibition against the sale of for- 
eign tickets, they have been offered for sale during the 
past summer. Bills for the introduction of the lottery 
system, have been from time to time presented to the 
legislature, but without success. At the last session of 
the senate, a bill received its sanction for the purpose 
of improving the condition of Purgatory,* butalarge 
majority of the house defeated the proposition. 

In Connecticut there are two unexpired grants; the 
Retreat for the Insane and the Enfield Bridge Com- 
pany. The sale of tickets, not authorised by these 
grants, is prohibited by the revised criminal code of 
1830, under the penalty of fine or imprisonment. 

The laws by which lotteries are guarded in this 
state, are so judicious that w 7 e propose to introduce an 
abstract of their provisions. 

The revised criminal code of 1830, prohibits all un- 
authorized lotteries in any form. As the sections re- 
lating to this subject are short, they may be inserted 
entire : — 

u Sec. 04. If any person shall without special liberty 
from the general assembly, set up any lottery to raise 
and collect money, or for the sale of any property ; 

* The name of a road well known to travellers passing between Vin- 
cennes and St. Louis. It is observed of the object of this bill by a cor- 
respondent who has kindly given us the information, that * it would be 
certainly a very proper application of money raised by means of lot- 
teries, as through their agency, many are fitted for this dreadful place.' 



90 

or if any person shall, by wages, shooting, or any 
kind of hazard, sell and dispose of any kind of pro-* 
perty, or set up notifications to induce people to bring 
in and deposit property to be disposed of in such man- 
ner, or to risk their money or credit in carrying on 
such designs ; every such person so offending, being 
thereof duly convicted, shall be punished by fine not 
exceeding one hundred dollars nor less than twenty dol- 
lars, or by imprisonment in a common gaol for a term 
notexceding one year nor less than sixty days." 

" Sec. 95. That no person or persons shall, within 
this state, sell any lottery ticket or tickets, or any part, 
portion, or interest therein, excepting lotteries grant- 
ed by the general assembly thereof; or open or keep 
any office, shop or store for the purpose of selling or 
procuring any lottery ticket or tickets or papers afore- 
said, or any part, portion, or interest therein, or act as 
a broker, factor, or agent in buying, selling, or pro- 
curing to be bought, or sold or disposed of in any w r ay 
whatever, any such ticket or tickets, or any part, 
portion or interest therein, or in eflfecting.or endeavour- 
ing to effect any contract in regard thereto, or shall 
set up, exhibit, or publish, or cause to be set up, ex- 
hibited or published within this state any written or 
printed proposals — to buy, sell, or procure any such 
ticket or tickets, or any part, portion or interest there- 
in; and any person or persons so offending, being 
thereof duly convicted, shall be punished by fine not 
exceeding three hundred dollars nor less than fifty 



91 

dollars or by imprisonment in a common gaol not 
less than two months nor more than one year." 

An act for regulating lotteries was also passed in 
1830. By this act, the sale of shares of tickets is 
forbidden on pain of one hundred dollars for the first, 
and two hundred dollars for any subsequent offence. 

No ticket is to be sold for more than the scheme 
price, under the penalty of forfeiting the value of the 
ticket. The purchaser, in such case, may also sue 
for the price and compel the seller to answer on oath 
or suffer judgment as upon nil dicit. Prizes must be 
paid within 60 days after the last day of drawing. 
No deduction is to be made beyond 15 per cent: and 
no discount for prompt payment is allowed beyond 
six per cent per annum for the unexpired time of the 
60 days, on pain of fifty dollars fine, with twice the 
amount of discount taken beyond the rate of 15 per 
cent. No scheme can be drawn on the principle of 
the combination of numbers; but it must be drawn 
by depositing separate ballots, on which shall be in- 
scribed or written the blanks and prizes in one wheel, 
and ballots with the numbers of the tickets in arith- 
metical order in another. Fine for drawing in any 
other manner, 500 dollars for the first offence, 1000 
dollars for any subsequent offence, and purchasers of 
tickets may sue for the price. 

Actions on contracts, the consideration of which is 

wholly or partly the sale of lottery tickets, must be 

brought within three days* In all such actions the 
H 



92 

defendant may file his complaint, setting forth any 
violation of the statue, and compel the plaintiff to 
answer on oath, or suffer a non-suit with costs. 
Purchasers of tickets are made competent witnesses, 
and their testimony cannot afterwards be used against 
them in any other proceeding. 

Auditors are appointed by the general assembly to 
audit and adjust the accounts of every drawing, and 
make report to the general assembly. No succeeding 
class can be drawn until the accounts have been 
audited, settled, and adjusted, on pain of one thousand 
dollars, to be paid by any offending manager. 

All lotteries granted by the authority of the state, 
must be drawn w T ithin it and not elsewhere. 

A subsequent act relative to accounting, was passed 
in 1831. The object of it is to ascertain when the 
amount of existing grants, shall have been actually 
exhausted. It is manifest from this that Connecticut 
intends to abolish the system, upon the expiration of 
the present grants. 

In Georgia there have been thirteen grants since 
the year 1825. A penalty exists against the sale of 
foreign tickets, but the law from long evasion, is re- 
garded as obsolete. The system which obtains in 
this state of disposing by lottery of the public lands, is 
no otherwise pernicious than as it keeps alive a gamb- 
ling propensity, and has been the means of giving them 
to unworthy recipients without a just equivalent. It is 
beside the present treatise, to unfold the iniquities of 



93 

those laws which have disposed of the Cherokee ter- 
ritory in Georgia. The end and the means are alike 
disgraceful, and present a dark picture of national 
perfidy ! The value of lottery tickets annually sold in 
Savannah, whose population is 8000, is differently 
estimated at from 15,000 to 70,000 dollars. 

The last legislature of Missouri granted two lot- 
teries, one for the construction of a rail-road, and the 
other for the benefit of a hospital at St. Louis, to be 
under the direction of 6 The Sisters of Charity/ It is 
much to be regretted that Missouri should now for 
the first time embark in a system, which, the other states 
are endeavouring to abolish, under an impression that 
the cause of improvement or true benevolence can be 
promoted by it. But the argument in favour of the 
bills, was that as foreign lottery tickets w 7 ere not pro- 
hibited, they found admission into the state, and there 
was no way to remedy the evil but by the encourage- 
ment of a domestic system ! 

In Kentucky and Alabama grants are in being, and 
foreign lottery tickets sold without any legal impedi- 
ment. Lotteries exist in Rhode Island and Delaware, 
but to what extent and under what circumstances, 
we have no means of ascertaining. 



APPENDIX. 



NOTE 1. Page 10. 

Act of the Assembly of Pennsylvania, passed 17th 
February, 1762. 

An act for the more effectual suppressing and preventing 
of Lotteries. 

Whereas many mischievous and unlawful games, called 
lotteries, have been set up in this province, which tend to 
the manifest corruption of youth, and the ruin and impo- 
verishment of many poor families ; and whereas such per- 
nicious practices may not only give opportunities to evil 
disposed persons to cheat and defraud the honest inhabitants 
of this province, but prove introductive of vice, idleness and 
immorality, injurious to trade, commerce and industry, and 
against the common good, welfare and peace of this pro- 
vince : For remedy whereof, Be it enacted, That, 

1, Sect. I. All lotteries whatsoever whether public or 
private, are common and public nuisances, and against the 
common good and welfare of this province 
H 2 



96 

Sect. II. No person or persons whatsoever shall publicly 
or privately set up, erect, make, exercise, keep open, show 
or expose to' be played at, drawn, or thrown at, any lottery, 
play or device, or shall cause or procure the same to be done 
either by dice, lots, cards, balls, tickets, or any other num- 
bers or figures, or in any other manner or way whatsoever, 
and every person or persons that shall set up, erect, make, 
exercise, keep open, show or expose to be played at, drawn 
or thrown at, any such lottery, play or device, or that shall 
cause or procure the same to be done, after the publication 
of this act, and shall be thereof legally convicted in any 
court of quarter sessions, within the jurisdiction whereof 
the said offences shall be committed, or in the supreme 
court if thereunto removed from any of the inferior courts 
within this province, shall forfeit and pay the sum of five 
hundred pounds, lawful money of Pennsylvania. 

2. Sect. III. All and every person and persons what- 
ever, that shall buy, sell, or expose to sale, or that shall 
advertise or cause to be advertised, the sale of any ticket 
or tickets, or device whatsoever, in such lotteries, plays or 
devices, or that shall be aiding, assisting or in anywise con- 
cerned in managing, conducting, or carrying on such lot- 
teries, plays and devices, by whatsoever name the same 
may be called, and be legally convicted thereof in either of 
the courts afroesaid, shall forfeit and pay the sum of twenty 
pounds, lawful money of Pennsylvania, for every such 
offence. 

3. Sect* IV. All and every person and persons whatso- 
ever, that shall within this province, buy, sell or expose to 
sale, or shall advertise or cause to be advertised, the sale of 



97 

any ticket or tickets, or other device whatsoever, in any 
lottery, play or device whatsoever, which shall be hereafter 
set up, erected, made, exercised, kept open, shown or ex- 
posed to be drawn at, played at or thrown at, in or at any 
place or places out of this province, (state lotteries erected 
and licenced by the act of Parliament in Great Britain, only 
excepted, and foreprized,) and be thereof legally convicted 
in manner aforesaid, shall forfeit and pay the sum of twenty 
pounds, lawful money of Pennsylvania for every such 
offence. 

Sect. V. All the fines, forfeitures and penalties hereby 
inflicted, shall be paid to the overseers of the poor, for the 
time being, for the use of the poor of the city, borough or 
township, where any of the said offences shall be com- 
mitted. 

We add to this act of Assembly from an excellent 
book designed to show the evils of the lottery system, 
a passage in reply to the allegation often made, that 
it is not a game, and consequently does not fall under 
the denunciation against ordinary gambling. The 
book is in the form of a dialogue, and the passage 
quoted is intended to combat the assertion that it is 
not a game. 

" Are not the silent partners in a game as much interest- 
ed as those who are manually engaged? Are the gamesters 
upon the turf less interested for not riding their own horses? 
Every ticket holder is a partner in the lottery game, and the 
managers are their deputed agents to play it. But the man- 
agers are by no means disinterested, their commissions 
upon the amount staked being a powerful stimulus to exer- 



98 



tion ; and from causes which I have not descended to in- 
vestigate, they not only withhold all profits from those who 
furnish the capital, but absorb a great portion of the capita* 
itsself. A case has been publicly stated in this city, and not 
disproved, where the adventurers in a single lottery suffered 
a loss of nearly one hundred thousand dollars. I make no 
allegation of fraud ; but that men without capital, should 
realize such immense profits from their labour, appears 
irreconcilable with fair dealing. I know not what so essen- 
tially constitutes gaming, as"placing property at the disposi- 
tion of hazard ; and in no case, actual or supposed, can it 
be more completely subjected to the control of chance, than 
in the lottery wheel. The conclusion then is just, that 
managers, to protect their profession from suspicions of 
fraud and circumvention, in drawing the lot, must either 
acknowledge the lot to be a fair game of chance, or by 
denying it confirm those suspicions." 

***** 

" I have heard you with patience and without surprise ; 
for I am no stranger to the influence of avarice upon prin- 
ciple, nor of sophistry required to * make the worse appear 
the better reason ;' and with your indulgence, will analyze 
some of your positions, and try their validity by the stan- 
dard of rectitude. Your description of gaming is correct ; 
and I am the more particularly indebted for your explana- 
tion, from its special application to lottery speculation ; for 
you have urged no reasons for the prohibiting of gaming, 
that do not apply with aggravated force to what I denomi- 
nate lottery gambling. You mention idleness as a con- 
comitant of gaming. What has a greater tendency to remit 



99 

exertions than the expectation of independence without it 1 
You justly insert dissipation in your list of evils attached 
to gaming. In what other game is the subversion of reason 
so necessary for the success of players as in that of lottery ? 
This is evinced by the uniform support given by lottery 
dealers to the licensing system, and their opposition to the 
temperance reformation. What class of venders make sale 
of so many lottery tickets as retailers of ardent spirits ? 
The winner must treat for his luck, and the loser drown his 
grief in the bottle. You say that dishonesty is an appurte- 
nance of gaming. I agree with you, and hope to convince 
you that no game so necessarily engenders this vice as the 
one which lottery brokers play for a living. Be not dis- 
turbed ; I bring no 'railing accusation' against the players, 
however much justice might inculpate them. My business 
is with the dishonest principle which is inseparably inter- 
woven with the system. You pertinetly annex covetous- 
ness, avarice, and disregard to the rights of others, to the 
catalogue of delinquencies. I shall consider them all one 
family, and treat them as kindred. What better evidence 
can be produced of the existence of dishonest principles in 
men, than their coveting their neighbour's goods, without 
paying a consideration ? And where is this principle incul. 
cated so effectually and unblushingly as in lotteries ? Here 
adventurers are enticed by every seductive artifice to risk their 
money. The allurements of sudden wealth are displayed in 
their most dazzling colours. The devout aspiration * lead 
us not into temptation/ which was enjoined by Him who 
'spake as never man spake,' is little heeded by the adroit 
and interested manager. The ignorant and unwary are 
thus entrapped, and made the willing converts to sordid 



100 

selfishness. The ties of social interest are loosened, and 
the chords of reciprocal good will severed. Liberality if 
supplanted by covetousness, and generosity by avarice ; 
and the gamester, despoiled of all the benevolent feelings of 
his nature, lives for himself alone. He envies the prosper- 
ous, and asperses the good. Ke well knows that others 
must loose what he hopes to win ; and the climax of his 
hope is the ruin of his neighbours. Such unsocial feelings 
and debasing affections are generated by the lottery system, 
and ■ grow with its growth and strengthen with its strength.' 
They take full possession of the minds of adventurous 
youth, and moral honesty ' has not where to lay its head.' 
" Do you doubt these truths, sir ? attend the police courts 
of our city, and witness the insipient progress of these 
principles in juvenile offenders. See their early depravity 
nourished by the poisonous aliment of gambling specula- 
tion ; and if I am not misinformed, lottery tickets are the 
frequent stakes at the most filthy gambling tables. The 
contagion infects the whole community ; neither town, 
village, nor hamlet is free from the contamination. Mechan- 
ics and children issue unauthorised schemes, and to * con- 
spire to defraud' is the popular test of ingenious merit and 
has been deemed legally excusable by our courts of judica- 
ture. Your plea in support of the lottery system that its 
existence is indispensable for the accomplishments of objects 
of public utility, I contend is untenable. The equality of 
the contributions which you assert is warranted by no ex- 
perience ; the reverse is the fact. Nine-tenths of the amount 
raised by lottery for public improvements, I have confidence 
to believe, are paid by the poorer class of people, to whom 
these improvements can be of little or no value." 



101 

NOTE 2. Page 14. 
In Mr. Wallace's report made to the legislature of Penn- 
sylvania on the 11th of February, 1833, it is stated, that the 
gross amount of lotteries authorised by the Union Canal Com- 
pany from 1811 up to the end of the year, was $26,562,947. 
The data of this calculation, including the estimate for the 
present year, are shown by the following tables. 



the new 

Board of 

Scheme 


C3 

on 

03 

c 


BQ 


prior to 
by the 
in each 


(0 


o 


~-a % 


— ^ 


£ « ^ 


c 




—, 


tter 
pro 
tic 


o 


ILo 
n ap 
er of 


r2 
03 


2 03 JS 


bfl 


C Qi G 


ai 


— 


w « £ 


bfl 
bn 


S « <" 


~ 


.S.c-5 


qp 


£*^ 


«^ 



-S * --a m 





o c g ^ ° 


"SO * £ « 


1 the 
of th 
vertis 
me p 
the li 


ofal 
tion 

•s, ad 

Sche 

and 


•«j c3 g _r" 

S 3 c^« 


03 b£ ed ^3 -— 




GG 


^H 



r«* 



*£ 



o a 
£2 



hW —I 

co'-'t^t^Goooc* 

— 1 QO- • — • — — i oco 
„ — CO GO GO GO 73 -h 





ds 
Ha 






a 
Q 




G3 


„ 










£> 


= 










£ 


ID 










o 












HH O 


< 









o o 


■^Q 


c 


QfiftftQ 


W 















E3 














^ a oooooooo 
« 2-QpfiQQQftP 

-5 ^ 
."S3 13 



oooooooo 

oooooooo 

O CG © 0_ 0_ O © O 

©" c£ ©~ tff of ©"" >-rf ©* 
oo-^^gnjoc^o 
^ ^ C* 00 O CI ^ — 



o oooooooo 
o oooooooo 

o oo wnno ^oo 



oooooooo 
oooooooo 
© o^ © © o^_ o o^ o 
o" o" irT uo" co o" o" o" 



i-l ClCO^iO^C-GOCD 



102 



2. Statement of the Schemes of the Union Canal Lottery 
which have been approved by the Broad of Managers, 
showing the number of tickets in each scheme, the scheme 
price thereof, and the aggregate amount of prizes and 
time of drawing thereof, under the new organization of 
the Company and of the Managers elected on the 21st 
day of May, 1821. — Archibald M'Intyre, Contractor and 
Manager of the lotteries. 









u i 










Schemes. 




s a3 


Amount 
of Prizes. 


Time of 
Drawing. 








o 


W 








10th Class. 


20,000 


$5 


3100,000 


April 16, 1822, 




1st new series. 


4,060 


3 


12,180 


Feb. 7, " 


4-5 

O 


2d 


do. 


u 


5 


20,300 


April 1 1, " 


& 


3d 


do. 


6,545 


7 


45,815 


Nov. 21, ■ 


o 


4th 


do. 


5,456 


6 


32,736 


Feb. 5, 1823. 


4-> 

03 


5th 


do. 


7,140 


6 


42,840 


April 2, " 


^ < 


6th 


do. 


11,418 


5 


57,400 


Oct. 7, " 


ja 


7th 


do. 


4,190 


5 


70,950 


Jan. 17, 1824. 


S-l 

>> 


8th 


do. 


7,980 


4 


31,920 


Feb. 26, u 


fl 


9th 


do. 


u 


4 


u 


March 25, " 


g 


10th 


do. 


u 


4 


u 


April 22, « 




11th 


do. 


u 


4 


M 


May 27, " 




12th 


do. 


u 


4 


It 


June 24, " 




. 13th 


do. 


17,550 


5 


87,750 


Oct. 28, " 




14th 


do. 


34,220 


8 


273,760 


Jan. 5, 1825. 




15th 


do. 


u 


6 


205,320 


March, 9, " 




16th 


do. 


u 


8 


273,760 


May 11, " 


O 


17th 


do. 


It 


8 


(i 


July 6, " 




18th 


do. 


45,760 


4 


183,040 


Sept. 7, " 


C 

o 


19th 


do. 


u 


8 


366,080 


Feb. 1, 1826. 


T3 


20th 


do. 


C( 


3 


137,280 


March 29, " 


o 


2 1st 


do. 


34,220 


3 25 


111,215 


May, 3, " 


CQ 


22d 


do. 


" 


4 


136,880 


June 14, ■ 


J? 1 


23d 


do. 


(4 


4 


" 


July 26, " 


J- 


24th 


do. 


M 


3 


102,660 


Sept. 20, " 




25th 


do. 


U 


4 


136,880 


Nov. 15, " 


g 


26th 


do. 


u 


5 


171,100 


Jan. 10, 1827. 




27th 


do, 


n 


4 


136,880 


March 28, " 




28th 


do. 


M 


3 


102,660 


May 2, " 



103 



Schemes. 






Amount 
of Prizes. 



Time of 
Drawing 



8' 



29 th class new i 
30th do. 



31st 

32d 

33d 

34th 

35th 

36th. 



do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 



1st class, do. 
2d do. 



1328. 



3d 

4th 

5th 

6th 

7th 

8th 

9th 

10th 

11th 

12th 

13th 

14tb 

15th 



do. 
do! 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 



1st class, do. 
2d do. 



3d 


do. 


4th 


do. 


5th 


do. 


6th 


do. 


7th 


do. 


8th 


do. 


9th 


do. 


10th 


do. 


11th 


do. 


12th 


do. 


13th 


do. 


14th 


do. 


15fli 


do. 



34,220 

24,804 



34,220 
14,190 



24,804 

u 

14,190 



17,296 
14,190 
11,480 



1829. 



34,220 



17,296 
34,220 



4 
4 
4 
3 
3 
3 

.2 30 
4 
5 
8 
8 
8 

16 
8 
4 
4 



$136,880 

99,216 

124,020 

k 

99,216 
102,660 
113,520 



56,760 

99,216 
74,412 
42,570 

u 

32,637 

56,760 

70,950 

113,520 

138,368 

113,520 

183,680 

91,840 

45,920 

136,880 

273,760 

M 

136,880 
273,760 
136,880 
102,660 
136,880 
273,760 
126,880 
136,388 
273,760 



June 16, 1827. 
July 25, " 
August 22, " 
Sept. 19, " 
Oct. 10, « 
Nov. 14, " 
Dec. 26, " 
Jan. 23, 1828. 
Feb. 15, " 
March 19, " 
April 16, " 
May 7, " 
May 31, " 
June 24, " 
July 17, " 
Aug. 4, ." 
do. 27, " 
Sept. J 3, u 
Oct. 4, ■ 

do. 27, M 
Nov. 25, " 
Dec. 31, " 
Jan. 30, 1829. 
Feb. 21, " 
March 24, " 
April 16, " 
May 4, " 
May 22, " 
June 13, " 
July 3, " 

do. 25, « 
Aug. 15, ■ 
Sept. 5, " 

do. 26, " 
Oct. 20, " 
Nov. 14, • " 
Dec. 17, « 
Jan. 2, 1830.1 



104 



Schemes. 


o 


o 
S 6 


Amount 
ot Prizes. 


Time of 
Drawing 


| 


r IstClass, 1830. 


34,220 


84 


8136,880 


Jan. 23, 1830. 




2d 


do. 


24,804 


8 


198,432 


Feb. 6, 


tt 




3d 


do. 


tt 


8 


tt 


do. 20 


tt 




4th 


do. 


.( 


6 50 


161,226 


March, .6 


tt 




5th 


do. 


M 


5 


124,020 


do. 26, 


tt 




6th 


do. 


34,220 


7 


239,540 


April 20 


u 




7th 


do. 


24,804 


8 


198,432 


May 8, 


u 




8th 


do. 


34,220 


4 


136,880 


do. 22, 


tt 




9th 


do. 


u 


4 


tt 


June 5, 


tt 




10th 


do. 


, tt 


5 


171,100 


do 19, 


tt 




11th 


do. 


tt 


4 


136,880 


July 3, 


tt 




12th 


do. 


IC 


4 


tt 


do. 17, 


tt 




13th 


do. 


tt 


4 


tt 


do. 31 


tt 




14th 


do. 


u 


3 


102,660 


Aug. 14, 


tt 




15th 


do. 


CI 


4 


136,880 


do. 28, 


tt 




16th 


do. 


It 


8 


273,760 


Sept. 11, 


tt 


■tl 


17th 


do. 


45,760 


4 


183,040 


do. 25, 


tt 




18th 


do. 


34,220 


8 


273,760 


Oct. 9, 


tt 


1 


19th 


do. 


45,760 


4 


183,040 


do. 23, 


tt 


o 
o 


20th 


do. 


tt 


8 


366,080 


Nov. 6, 


tt 


-H 


21st 


do. 


tt 


4 


183,040 


do. 20, 


tt 


3 <( 


22d 


do. 


34,220 


8 


273,760 


Dec. 4, 


tt 




23d 


do. 


u 


4 


136,880 


do. 18, 


tt 


>> 


24th 


do. 


tc 


8 


273,760 


Jan. 3, 1831. 


I— • 


IstClass, 1831. 


45,760 


4 


183,040 


do. 15, 


tt 


§ 


2d 


do. 


tt 


8 


966,080 


do. 29, 


tt 




3d 


do. 


34,220 


4 


136,830 


Feb. 12, 


tt 




4th 


do. 


24,804 


8 


183,040 


do. 26, 


tt 




5th 


do. 


45,760 


4 


198,432 


March 12, 


tt 




6th 


do. 


24,804 


8 


183,040 


do. 26, 


tt 




7th 


do. 


45,760 


4 


138,368 


April 9, 


tt 




8th 


do. 


17,296 


8 


183,040 


do. 23, 


tt 




9th 


do. 


45,760 


4 


273,760 


May 7, 


tt 




10th 


do. 


34,220 


8 


99,216 


do. 21, 


tt 




11th 


do. 


24,804 


4 


198,432 


June 4, 


tt 




12th 


do. 


tt 


8 


136,880 


do. 18, 


tt 




13th 


do. 


34,220 


4 


273,760 


July 2, 


tt 




14th 


do. 


tt 


8 


136,880 


do. 16, 


tt 




15th 


do. 


tt 


4 


273,760 


do. 30, 


tt 




16th 


do. 


tt 


8 


136,880 


Aug. 13, 


tt 




17th 


do. 


tt 


4 


273,760 


do. 27, 


tt 




18th 


do. 


tt 


8 


136,880 


Sept. 10, 


ll 



105 









05 

§2 


03 

is .2 


Amount 


Time of 




Schemes. 


3^ 


of Prizes. 


Drawing. 








&% 


m P-i 








' 19th 


do. 


34,220 


14 


$136,880 


Sept. 24, 1831. 


g 


20th 


do. 


U 


8 


273,760 


Oct. 8, 


i 


o 


21st 


do. 


it 


4 


136,880 


do. 22, 


i 


13 


22d 


do. 


It 


8 


273,760 


Nov. 5, 


c 




23d 


do. 


ti 


4 


136,880 


do. 19, 


4 


o 

o 


24th 


do. 


li 


8 


273,760 


Dec. 3, 


* 


-a 


25th 


do. 


u 


4 


136,880 


do. 17, 


u 




26th . 


do. 


(1 


8 


273,760 


do. 31, 




* 1st Class, 1832. 


II 


3 


102,660 


Jan. 14, 1832. 




2d 


d#. 


II 


8 


273,760 


do. 28, 




3d 


do. 


24,804 


4 


99,216 


Feb. 11, " 




4th 


do. 


it 


8 


198,432 


do. 28, « 




5th 


do. 


34,220 


4 


136,880 


March 10, " 




6th 


do. 


ii 


8 


273,760 


do. 24, 




7th 


do. 


ti 


4 


136,880 


April 7, 




8th 


do. 


it 


6 40 


219,008 


do. 21, 


o 


9th 


do. 


ti 


4 


136,880 


May 5, 




10th 


do. 


ii 


8 


273,760 


do. 19, " 




11th 


do. 


u 


4 


136,880 


June 2, " 


Q* 


12th 


do. 


It 


8 


273,760 


do. 16, " 


jp. 


13th 


do. 


It 


4 


136,880 


do. 30, " 




14th 


do. 


II 


8 


273,760 


July 14, " 


c 


15th 


do. 


It 


3 


102,660 


do. 28, " 


g 


16th 


do. 


It 


6 


205,320 


Aug. 11, " 


Cm 


17th 


do. 


45,760 


3 


137,280 


do. 25, " 


b 


18th 


do. 


it 


5 


228,800 


Sept. 8, " 


r3 


19th 


do. 


34,220 


4 


136,880 


do. 22, " 


03 


20th 


do. 


" 


8 . 


273,760 


Oct. 6, " 


o 


21st 


do. 


45,760 


5 


228,800 


do. 20, " 




22d 


do. 


it 


8 


366,080 


Nov. 3, " 




23d 


do. 


it 


4 


183,040 


do. 17, " 




24th 


do. 


ti 


8 


366,080 


Dec. 1, " 




25th 


do. 


ti 


4 


183,040 


do. 15, " 




26th 


do. 


it 


5 


228,800 | do. 29, " 



106 



The Schemes issued from December 31, 1832, to No- 
vember 16, 1833, are as follow, according to a list which 
has been regularly kept by a gentleman of this city. 



i s 

So 


Number of 
Tickets. 




Amount 
of Scheme. 


Time of Drawing. 


02 

W a) 

O s_ 
J P* 


S3 

it 


l 


34,220 


$4 


$136,880 


January 12, 


183. 


5 


9 


2 


45,760 


8 


366,080 


Do. 26, 


tt 


10 


10 


3 


it 


4 


183,040 


Febuary 9, 


tt 


5 


10 


4 


tt 


8 


366,080 


Do. 23, 


tt 


10 


10 


5 


tt 


4 


183,040 


March 9, 


it 


5 


10 


6 


u 


8 


366,040 


Do. 23, 


"• 


12 


10 


7 


tt 


4 


183,040 


April 6, 


tt 


5 


10 


8 


tt 


8 


366,080 


Do. 20, 


tt 


10 


10 


9 


u 


4 


183,040 


May 4, 


u 


5 


10 


10 


tt 


8 


366,080 


Do. 18, 


tt 


12 


10 


11 


u 


4 


183,040 


June 1, 


tt 


5 


10 


12 


* 


6 


274,560 


Do. 15, 


it 


8 


10 


13 


tt 


4 


183,040 


Do. 29, 


u 


5 


10 


14 


u 


8 


366,080 


July 13, 


tt 


10 


10 


15 


It 


3 


137,280 


Do. 27, 


u 


4 


10 


16 


It 


6 


274,560 


August 10, 


(t 


8 


10 


17 


tt 


4 


183,040 


Do. 24, 


tt 


5 


10 


18 


u 


*8 


366,080 


September 7, 


tt 


12 


10 


19 


u 


4 


183,040 


Do 21, 


tt 


5 


10 


20 


tt 


8 


366,080 


October 5, 


tt 


10 


10 


21 


tt 


4 


183,040 


Do. 19, 


tt 


5 


10 


22 


tt 


8 


366,080 


November 2, 


tt 


12 


10 


23 


tt 


4 


183,040 


Do. 16, 


tt 


5 


10 



General summary of the Lottery Schemes above, 
given in detail. 

1. From April 2, 1811, to March 25, 1821, $3,068,000 

2. From March 26, 1821, to Dec. 31, 1822, 23,494,947 

3. From Dec. 31, 1832, to Nov. 16, 1833, 5, 948,360 



Add for December, 1833, two Schemes, J 
one for $366,080, do. $183,040, J 



$32,511,307 
540,120 

$33,060,427 



107 
NOTE 3. 

" The Pennsylvania Society for the Suppression of 
Lotteries" was formed at Philadelphia in the year 
1834, and issued an Address to the people of Penn- 
sylvania and the United States, from which the fol- 
lowing extract is made: 

" The undersigned have been charged by ' The Penn- 
sylvania Society for the suppression of Lotteries' with the 
duty of laying before the people of Pennsylvania and the 
United States, the general evils of the Lottery system, in 
connexion with the reasons and objects of /their own asso- 
ciation. In the performance of the function assigned them, 
they cannot perhaps do better than to present, as introduc- 
tory to both, a succinct history of their efforts to abolish 
lotteries in this state. This appears to be the more neces- 
sary, because their designs have been impugned and mis- 
represented, and because a simple narrative must, in its 
relations, shed light upon the general question in its various 
aspects. 

" From causes to which it is here unnecessary to advert, 
Pennsylvania, in the latter part of the, year 1821, became a 
mart for nearly all the lotteries in the United States. Al- 
though the laws were armed with severe penalties to punish 
the sale of foreign tickets, the evil, in a few years, became 
so excessive that the drawings of at least fifteen prohibited 
lotteries were regularly announced, in this city, quite as a 
matter of course, throughout the year. Our streets were 
overrun and deformed by lottery offices. The effects of so 
extensive a traffic were obvious. They were seen in the 
number of insolvents; in the multiplication of tippling- 
12 • 



108 

houses ; in the desolation want and misery of the domestic ' 
fireside; in the increase of pauperism, immorality and 
crime. Efforts were made to stop the progress or restrain 
the influence of this desolating scourge, but without success. 
Transgressors had so long enjoyed impunity, that they 
almost claimed it by prescription. No prospect presented 
but passive submission to a state of things at once perni- 
cious and disgraceful. The traffic had so mingled itself 
with the feelings of our citizens, that hundreds of persons 
were known to pursue the purchase of lottery tickets as a 
regular means of subsistence. The subject at length attract-' 
ed the attention of a number of gentlemen who aimed at 
remedying the evil by its extirpation. In the year 1831, 
these gentlemen iss-ued a report upon the illegality, abuses 
and mischiefs of the system. They likewise addressed 
to the legislature a memorial, in which they enforce, in 
strong language, the necessity for its immediate interposi- 
tion. These contributed to rouse the public to the magni- 
tude and means of eradicating a disease, which, as men 
happened to view it, had been esteemed either as very 
trivial, or altogether incurable. Other publications were 
issued under the same sanction, and followed by similar 
results. On the first day of March, 1833, a law was en- 
acted, declaring all lotteries in Pennsylvania unauthorized 
and illegal. The act was not to go into effect until the 31st 
day of the subsequent December, thus allowing, to persons 
engaged in the lottery business, a period of ten months for 
the selection of some other and more useful pursuit. It had 
been in operation only a few weeks, when intimations were 
made that it was violated. To avoid, if possible, the neces- 
sity of instituting prosecutions, offenders were warned 
through the public prints of the consequences likely to 



109 

ensue from disregarding a statute so highly penal in its 
character. Notwithstanding this humane caution, accom* 
panied as it was by the republication of the act itself, assu* 
ranees were daily received that the violations were unre* 
mitied and extensive. Much expense had been incurred 
and labour expended, and the legislature, after mature de- 
liberation, had solemnly declared that lotteries were detri- 
mental to the interests of society. The supposed benefits 
arising to the cause of internal improvements in Pennsyl- 
vania, were, in its opinion, countervailed by their injurious 
effects. The question then occurred whether something 
worse than the former condition of things could be passively 
tolerated? Whether Pennsylvania should be allowed to 
contribute to the public improvements of Delaware, Mary- 
land, Virginia, Rhode Island, and other places, in a way 
which she had emphatically denied to herself? Whether, 
in a word, she should pour her treasures into the lap of 
other states, for the purpose of obtaining all the evils, with- 
out any of the promised advantages of the system? No 
alternative remained but to rest satisfied with an act, which 
while it denounced high penalties against offenders, was to 
lie inoperative and despised upon the statute-book, or to 
make a vigorous effort to carry it into execution. As no 
disposition was felt to accept a nominal abolition, a mere 
ideal shadow, while we had been struggling for the sub- 
stance, the present association was formed. One of its 
express and fundamental purposes is, to aid the public 
authorities in carrying the law into effect, and as connected 
with this, to promote the enactment of similar laws, and the 
formation of similar societies throughout the Union. 

" Soon after the institution was organized by the adoption 



110 

of rules and the election of officers, abundant proof was fur- 
nished that it had not been formed in vain. Four persons, 
who we had reason to believe, had followed as a business 
the sale of tickets, were apprehended and held to bail in 
considerable sums. One of these has been already con- 
victed at the recent session of the Mayor's Court, and sen- 
tenced to undergo imprisonment in the county gaol for the 
period of three months. In the prosecution of its objects, 
the association is resolved to encounter, with all its energies 
the labour it has undertaken ; and to put in requisition all 
the honourable means it can employ, to vindicate the ma- 
jesty of the law by dragging its offenders to punishment." 

The original list of Officers of the Society is sub- 
joined. As no election has taken place since the year 
1834, and the law is known to be extensively violated, 
the Society should be re-organized, and an efficient 
body of officers elected for immediate and active 
duty. 



List of Officers of "Pennsylvania Society for the Suppres- 
sion of Lotteries," for the year 1834. 

President — Thomas C. James. 

Vice-Presidents — Alexander Henry, B. W. Richards, 

Thomas P. Cope, Abram Miller. 
Counsellors — W 4 M. Meredith, G. M. Stroud, J. R. 

Tyson. 
Secretaries — Geo. Handy, John M. Atwood* 
Treasurer — Thomas Earp. 



Ill 



Managers. 



Joseph Watson, 
Silas W. Sexton, 
J. J. Barclay, 
A. Symington, 
Joel Atkinson, 
Isaac Collins, 
Townsend Sharpless, 
John S. Henry, 
Geo. Williams, 
Hartt Grandom, 
John U. Fraley, 
G. W. Blight, 
John Wiegand, 
Thomas Astley, 
Samuel L. Shober, 



Matthew Newkirk, 
William Hodgson, 
Robert Earp, 
Geo. W Smith, 

Isaiah Hacker, 

Josiah White, 

Edward Needles, 

Josiah Warner, 

Barth. Wis tar, 

Henry Troth, 

Abraham Hilyard, 

Fred, Fraley, 

Jacob Lex, 

Edward Yarnall, 

Wm. M'Main, 



ERRATA. 

Page 32, line 12 from top, for or read nor. 
" 42, line 8 from top, omit the word every. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER I. 

Pages, 

Origin and Introduction of the Lottery into Europe, 7 

America indebted to England for the Lottery, . . 8-9-10 

The Lottery considered as a public measure, 11 et seq. 

Indefensible as a tax, 12-13-14 

Unprofitable as a means of Revenue, 15-16 

More injurious than other Gambling, 16-17 

CHAPTER II. 

History of the Lottery in England, 18 et seq. 

Examination of Witnesses by Committee of the House of 

Commons in 1808, 19-20-21-22-23 

Self-destruction arising, from Lottery in England, 24 

Lottery revived in England, 25 

Debate in English House of Commons in 1819, 25 

Opinion of the Chancellor, in defence of the Lottery, controverted, 25-26 

Savings Banks affected by the Lottery in England, 27 

Extinction of the Lottery in England and France (Vide note) 27 

CHAPTER III. 

The Lottery inconsistent with other establishments of Society ,_ 28-29 
The Lottery more diffusive in its effects than other gaming, 30 

The risks of the Lottery greater than other gaming, 30-31 

The Lottery adventurer and ordinary gamester compared, .... 3 1-32 

The History of the Lottery in Pennsylvania, 33 et seq. 

The Schemes of Lotteries in other states sold in Philadelphia, 34-35 

The loss to Philadelphia, 35 

The drawings in Philadelphia, . . . 36 

The Tricks and Frauds of the Lottery dealers, 36-37-38 

CHAPTER IV. 

Enquiry into principles upon which the Lottery is sustained 39-40 

Especially injurious to this country, 41 

How the Lottery can be extirpated, considered, 41 et seq. 

Criminal punishment recommended, 41-42 

Lotteries injurious to all the states while permitted in one, .... 42 
The experience of Massachusetts, after her Lottery system 

was abolished, 42-43 

In New York, New Hampshire, New Jersey &c. 43 



114 

Pages, 

Societies recommended to see the law enforced, , . 43-44 

The Lottery must be abolished in all the States, 44-45 

Constitutional prohibition necessary, * * . . . ♦ 44-45 

The Constitutions of New York, Maryland and Tennessee, 
prohibit the Legislatures of these states from making 

Lottery Grants, -, . . . . 44-45 

The Lottery System opposed to the welfare of the country, .... 45 

CHAPTER. V. 

The Legislatures of the states should appoint Committees to 

examine the effects of the Lottery System, 46-47 

Embezzlements, Frauds, Larcenies and Robberies resulting 
from Lotteries. 

The testimony of Joseph Watson, Esq 47-48 

The testimony of the Hon. John Sergeant, 48-49 

Cases, 49 to 60 

Insolvency, 

Chances of success in a Lottery considered, 60-61-62 

Lists of insolvent persons who have sustained losses by 

speculating in Lotteries, 62-63-64-65-66-67 

Cases, 67-68-69 

Disastrous effects of drawing Prizes, 

The effects of good and ill fortune considered, * 69-70 

The testimony of a Lottery Broker, 71-72 

Cases, 72 to 79 

Intemperance and Suicide. 

Intemperance and Suicide the natural effects of Lottery Gambling, 79 
Cases, 79 to 83 

The Lottery Laws in other states besides Pennsylvania. 

Extract from the Constitution of New York, 84 

The Lottery System in Virginia, „ , 85-86 

In Ohio, Vermont, Maine and Michigan, 86 

The Constitutions of Maryland and Tennessee, 86 

Lotteries in New Hampshire, 86-87 

In North Carolina and Massachusetts, 87-88 

In New Jersey, 88 

In Illinois, , 88 

In Connecticut, 89-90 

In Georgia, 92-93 

In Missouri, Kentucky, Alabama, Rhode Island and Delaware, 93 



i 






--■. 



lAfcMr 



^%'hh^h 'KrCkhhfy 






-tSSH&Sk 



MuM.^*, 



fl2MSSfe8 



>^||^ 






lllK.^L. 0F CONGRESS 



027 292 927 * 



%mi 



